The New Kid
by yordlepants
Summary: Kennen is a timid new student entering the 4th grade class of Bandle River Elementary, alongside his best friend. When a change in his transfer occurs, the boy is split from his buddy and placed in the daunting 5th grade class to fend for himself. Join him in this spin-off series as he mans up to conquer challenges, from making friends to dealing with the cantankerous school bully.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi there! Welcome to the first chapter of my new story, featuring the yordle champions of Bandle City in a spin-off series where they are all children/adolescents in a more modern setting. I originally had a story for my favorite League pairing, Poppy x Kennen, where I made 12 pretty short chapters to explore how I could take my writing before I decided that a) I didn't enjoy writing in first person and b) I wrote myself into a corner, dry of inspiration. This story I actually have fun writing, and I already have some idea of where the plot might go. It's nothing too big, but it's better.**

**All fourteen yordle champions (assuming and including Amumu as one) and other characters, including OCs, parents and indirectly related canon characters from the official lore _will eventually_ be introduced and integrated into the plot, with the protagonist of this story being Kennen and Teemo being the deuteragonist.**

** I hope you enjoy :D**

* * *

"Touch! I win again! And I wasn't even trying."

"No fair! I don't have any superpowers!"

"Who said I've got superpowers?"

"Me, I did!"

Two fawn yordlings laughed merrily amidst the warm afternoon, standing adjacent to each other, their small hands pressed on the trunk of a thin juvenile chestnut tree. The pair had known each other for a little more than three years now, having met three summers ago at a seven-hour day camp, and the two friends had enjoyed their mutual companionship during weekends, breaks in between school, and sometimes on nights that just called for it. Their bond was, quite precisely, unbreakable.

The younger of the pair was a yordling of relatively short stature even for his kind and age, with wide hazel spots around his aquamarine eyes (though they usually appeared closed), wearing a green baseball cap, camo-patterned tee, olive-colored shorts and camo running shoes. He stood wearily, his back hunched over as he commenced huffing and puffing with every ragged breath. The elder pup was a yordling of similar appearance, but with sky blue irises, no eye spots, and a slightly slimmer, taller build. He wore a simple red tee with a single yellow lightning-bolt design adorning the center, black shorts with double white stripes on the side, black flip-flops, messy brown hair, and a mischievous or playful grin most of the time. He smiled triumphantly and scrawled a crude mark on the soft tree rind, much to his buddy's light chagrin.

"That's seven for Kennen, nada for Teemo."

"You're totally cheating."

"The tree doesn't lie," Kennen crowed, pointing at the tally he had etched into the bark.

"No fair, no fair, no fair," Teemo whined indignantly, breathing childish protests in between numerous shallow puffs. "How am I supposed to beat you? You're... you're so fast it's impossible. Never, never in a thousand years could I beat... you. I'm even wearing running shoes, and you're just wearing dumb flip-flops. It's just not fair."

The older yordling shrugged. "Practice makes perfect."

"I run around a lot."

"That prolly goes double for me."

"But weren't you born like this?" the younger kit asked, before breaking into a snide but friendly grin. He proceeded to tease him in a singsong voice: "Haha, liar, liar, pants on fire."

Kennen looked down to see that his shorts were, contrary to what his friend had so confidently claimed, not actually on fire. "Yeah, I guess so," the older pup replied, his face crossed with an admissive smirk. And Teemo was very much correct. He was, indeed, born like _that. _

To say that Kennen was a very special – and very odd – yordling was a great understatement. The child was born into the world with a certain unique gift – that doubled as a burden to his parents, to say the least. From the moment he first felt the warmth of existence, he made his presence known – painfully. For months, his mother-to-be was be tormented by the constant scrambling and kicking of tiny feet within her womb. She endured the discomfort, interrupting her daily routine for what seemed like an eternity, but in the end, it was all worth it to introduce their firstborn and only child – an overly energetic baby who bounced off the walls whenever he was left unchecked.

Kennen possessed an unexplainable, non-inherited talent in the form of a body that seemed to be fueled by insurmountable amounts of energy; this allowed him to work at incredible speeds. He ran fast, moved fast, was quite dexterous (although also clumsy at times), thought and processed information fast, and he _never got tired. _In fact, his hyperactivity made sure that he never sat completely still at any given time; even during the rare moments when it might have appeared as such, his feet would usually be twitching, his toes crawling, his mind racing, and the like. It was as if the world moved slowly around him; rest and relaxation were but foreign concepts to the hot-blooded yordling. All his excess boundless energy made him quite the troublemaker at home, where his parents had to clear much of their furniture and décor to accommodate his antics. He was a nightmare for his folks to manage, none would doubt, but they were the best parents he could have asked for and they loved him, nonetheless.

The elder snickered as he shuffled his feet, getting ready to walk. "It's only been growing with me. I bet my parents are secretly getting sick of me." He grinned, reminiscing the facetious thoughts and memories of his mother and father desperately trying to catch the bouncing child as he ricocheted off the walls of his own home.

Teemo followed him inquisitively. "What? Really? Why?"

"Isn't it obvious? My own house is too small of a space for me."

Teemo laughed casually, regaining his breath and walking alongside the older boy. "I can see that."

Cue eye roll. "Yeah, thanks, Teemo."

"It's the other way around for me. Mom and Dad may think I'm a wreck because I'm super-duper quiet at home. When really, I have lots of people to talk to, like you and my friends from school."

Finding a conversational gateway, the younger child suddenly changed the topic, tilting his head inquisitively as he prepared to shoot his friend with another question. "So, summer's almost over. You'll be starting school soon, right?"

Kennen's smug visage drooped into a nervous, unsure expression as he tugged at various crinkles on his shirt, ceasing his advance along the sidewalk. He stared gloomily at the ground, suddenly becoming very interested in the cracks lining the pavement. "Oh. Y-yeah. Thanks for reminding me."

From his dreary view, he was able to hear his friend's makeshift apology. "Oh. Uh, sorry."

"Nah, Teemo, it's fine," Kennen beamed, looking back up and quickly reverting to his cool-headed grin. Refuting his energetic personality, Kennen was quite mature for children his age, being very level-headed and mentally stable in most situations. This was a trait that Teemo greatly admired about him, though he would never bring the fact up. The two began walking once more, the elder still speaking. "It's just that I'm a little worried, more than I'm excited. Things are... things are just gonna be so different, y'know?"

Along with his abnormal traits, unlike most yordlings his age, Kennen was homeschooled all his life. This was mainly done as an attempt to avoid any unnecessary catastrophes that might occur with his 'tendencies', as his mother always put them. Under the careful, watchful tutelage of his mother – and sometimes his father – the youngster would learn mathematics, speech, some basic sciences, a few sports, and many more, to her great lassitude, contrary to her son's. It was quite difficult due to his energy, which made it a challenge for him to pay constant, prolonged attention to the lessons at hand. During these seven-hour-long sessions, she tried and tried again to calm his wild habits and tame his exuberance, to only some avail. On occasion, she would consult a specialized behavior therapist to assist with her energetic child's development.

At the same time, Kennen proved to be quite a brilliant young boy, his intelligence being a bonus on top of his speed and reflexes. Naturally, having heightened impulses meant that his brain also worked faster than normal; thus, he was able to process things quickly. He was a swift, albeit gauche learner and usually displayed an acute sense in decision-making and judgment (so long that they weren't related to social matters). Additionally, he was enrolled in two extracurricular activities: martial arts and gymnastics. All this made things slightly easier for his budding mentors.

But one topic his parents missed and failed to educate their child on was the subject of social norms. Even under the influence of his therapist, this left Kennen to be a rather awkward child, although he was very friendly; but friendliness was a trait that came off as normal for yordles. He had little to no friends, and his best opportunities to practice what little social skills he had – besides with his therapist – always came and went with Teemo.

"What if the other kids don't like me? What if I don't fit in?". The taut boy began to pace.

Teemo laid a hand on his friend's tense shoulder, causing him to stop. "Don't you worry, soldier," the smaller yordling assured in as deep and mature a voice as he could muster, trying to emulate the voice of a drill sergeant. "I'll be there, remember? With me by your side, ain't nothin' that could go wrong."

"Oh, that's right," Kennen chuckled in a relieved tone. "I almost forgot, we're both nine. We'll be in the same class, won't we? Grade four?"

"Yessir. The friend gang could use new recruits."

"Alright, cut that out," laughed Kennen. Teemo was a yordling who, inspired by his father, was very keen on becoming a yordle scout for one of the most distinguished Bandle City Special Forces unit in the future: the legendary Scouts of the Mothership – his dream was made even more evident by his favorite camo shirt and overall choice of attire. Although just a child, he was quite knowledgeable on Bandle City war history, weapons, terminology and such, the last of which he occasionally put into his casual speech, much to Kennen's annoyance or amusement, depending on the situation.

"But seriously though, school is _literately_ so fun," Teemo exclaimed joyfully, ignoring his own botched attempt at using the word 'literally'. "It isn't that hard," he huffed before a pause, during which he lowered his eyebrows. "Except for homework. Homework isn't that fun."

This received yet another eye roll from Kennen, who continued to stroll down the street, unswayed. "Oh, trust me, I'm used to homework."

"I get it. Because you've always gone to school at home!" the other youngling smiled to himself as he jogged to draw level with his friend, apparently proud that he understood the supposed joke. He giggled to acknowledge its intended humor.

"Yeah, duh," the older kit lilted sarcastically.

"Lucky, so lucky."

"I mean, it's not, really," Kennen admitted, a faint echo of regret in his shrill voice. "Just look at me. Going to school at home all my life... means that I don't have a lot of friends."

"_Hey, _hey, I've got your back. I have some friends at school and I'm sure they wouldn't mind sharing whatever! They're a really, _really _very nice bunch." Teemo smiled at the self-provided reminder of his friends and classmates, who were indeed very friendly and charming for the most part.

The older yordling remained unconvinced, his friend able to spot his toes quivering from within his flip-flops, although he couldn't tell whether this behavior was from his being nervous, or merely his natural inability to stand completely still. "I guess it's just this. Now that I'm finally starting actual school, I'll... I'll honestly be nervous as heck."

"H-E-C-K!" Teemo spelled mockingly after feigning an offended gasp. "That's a bad, _bad_ word."

"Doesn't matter. I-I mean, is _not,_" Kennen returned playfully.

"Is _too!_"

"Nah, is _not._"

"Is too! I'm telling your mum."

"You wouldn't."

"I'm gonna do it!" Teemo declared jovially before promptly taking off, running as fast as he could along the sidewalk towards Kennen's house. Of course, catching the escaping pup was barely a challenge for Kennen, who practically trampled over his beaten friend as he finished closing the meager distance of two houses between them, heavily overestimating his own speed.

"Aw, come on," Teemo sighed in defeat, rubbing a nonexistent bruise on his knee as Kennen lifted him by the collar, grinning triumphantly. "How am I ever gonna be a good scout with you here?"

There was a silence before the elder spoke. "I don't wanna be a scout. Even if I did, I'd be way too loud, and I'd _never_ know how to keep still," he smiled, patting the shorter yordling's shoulder. "You'd make a great scout, Teemo. Don't... let me, of all people, stop you."

"Okay, noted," the younger kit said, brushing dust off his pants as his friend held an outstretched hand to help him up. He took it, and the older boy pulled him into a droll hug. Teemo got embarrassed – Kennen on the other hand didn't understand much of the intimacy of an action such as hugging, and felt no shame. After the friendly embrace, the two began walking aimlessly again, with no destination in mind. Suddenly, as the intrepid pair rounded a corner at a street intersection, Kennen almost rammed smack into another yordling.

"Sorry-sorry-sorry," he breathed apologetically. Although socially unskilled, Kennen knew basic social cues, and was quite the gentleyordle when it came to overall politeness and courtesy. That is, when he wasn't in one of his more dynamic states. He exchanged a sympathetic look with the child he almost tripped over and was returned with a brown-eyed wry grimace and a "No problem". The yordling's face changed, however, when Teemo came into view.

A cordial wave. "Hey, Teemo!"

The yordling in question was a short female, a teensy bit taller than Teemo but just coming up short to Kennen's height, with lilac skin, huge bat-like ears and short, white hair that barely fell halfway down her neck. She wore a camo-patterned tank top, similar in scheme to Teemo's shirt, and brown jeans that were slightly torn in various places along the leggings. She carried an olive-colored backpack, which Kennen couldn't help but notice had an unnecessary number of pockets and flaps.

"Hi, Tristana!" came the young boy's squeal of greeting. "How's it going?"

"I went to a small class today," the girl replied. "They showed us some cool stuff about the Megling Commandos." Tristana was a close friend of Teemo's, and like him, aspired to be a Bandle City Special Forces yordle when she grew up. Instead of wishing to be affiliated with the Scouts of the Mothership, though, she was determined to eventually secure a career to work under the Megling Commandos, the other distinguished branch of Special Forces units which focused on combat with weapons such as cannons. That was her dream.

"Aw, Tris, why didn't you tell me? I would've wanted to come too," complained Teemo, folding his arms and pouting.

Tristana grinned. "Meglings, not Scouts, silly."

"Still!"

"Oh, I've got something to show you. You won't believe this."

Teemo held his hands to his hips, faking an impudent scowl. "Okay. I'm waiting."

"Hold on. I gotta get Boomer to…"

With slight difficulty, Tristana pulled off her backpack – yes, she named it Boomer – and rested it on a clean patch of grass off to the side. After a bit of rummaging, she heaved and managed to pull out what was, to the two young, aspiring soldiers, a sacred artifact worth fawning over.

Teemo's jaw dropped as he feasted his eyes on the cannonball. It was wrapped in neat olive bandages like a present. "What?!" he shrieked in amazement, trying not to drool at the sight of the nondescript item in his friend's possession. "That's... that's so cool! Now I really wish I could've been there." A jealous frown formed across his face as Kennen watched their interactions with levity.

"I know, right?" Tristana bragged, her tone and chest swelling with childlike pride as she clutched the ball with both arms, struggling a little under its weight. "I got it for being a good student."

Teemo tried to ignore the boiling envy coursing within him. "Nice job, Tris."

The girl beamed, her brown irises glowing. She cradled the cannonball delicately before placing the relatively large item carefully into one of the many compartments of Boomer the backpack. Hoisting it up on her shoulders, she shook her hair and abandoned all thoughts about soldiers and cannonballs as she regained focus of the unfamiliar yordling standing next to her friend.

"Oh, who's this?" she motioned to a startled Kennen, catching him off guard and causing him to shift in place awkwardly, as if being toyed with.

"This is my great friend Kennen," Teemo presented. "I met him last summer. He lives near me."

"Pleased to meet you," the older boy offered gallantly despite the tenseness of the moment. "I'm Teemo's... yeah." He hid his hands behind his back, as they were fidgeting with each other like crazy, a habit the boy was used to whenever he was introduced to someone new – especially females his age. For some reason he also itched like crazy whenever meeting new girls, but he banished the burning urges to scratch himself.

"Well, nice to meet you too, Kennen," Tristana smiled amiably, fully dismissing or ignoring the fact that Kennen had almost squashed her earlier, though by pure accident. "Do you live close by?"

"I just said he lives near me, Tris," Teemo sighed at his female friend's blatant ignorance.

"Oh, right," the girl uttered sheepishly. She turned to Kennen again. "Do you go to our school?"

"No, I've been homeschooled my whole life. But soon-"

"He's gonna join our school soon!" Teemo butted in. "Grade four with us! He's super-duper fast, and super-duper smart, and super-duper ready!"

The two younger children cheered, dancing around the confused Kennen like a giddy carousel. Tristana stopped, causing Teemo to bump rudely into her, and she began to shake Kennen's limp hand like he was some sort of celebrity.

"Welcome to our school, Kennen," she chirped warmly, even though the opening day was still three days away and they were nowhere near the school campus at the time. "Our school is really great. It's kinda small and there's one class for each grade, but it's full of mostly nice people, great teachers, it's really fun." She exchanged a mutual, half-annoyed, half-amused glance with Teemo. "Except for homework."

"Uh, th-thanks. About the homework, maybe you guys should try harder," Kennen mocked, but he regretted his words the moment they left his mouth. Though quite the bright individual, the older boy, as emphasized earlier, clearly wasn't the most socially smart among his peers. There were times where he found his mouth acting without or before his mind, so to speak.

"Yeah, maybe," Teemo chortled, not at all offended, much to Kennen's relief. Teemo and friends really were a nice bunch, it seemed.

"So, how old are you?" Tristana questioned. She, too, had times where she spoke without thinking. It should have been glaringly obvious that Kennen was roughly the same age as her and Teemo as they would all be entering the same grade together, but the fact escaped her radar – and Teemo's – this time around.

"I'm... nine," Kennen answered, wondering why she had to ask. "I had my birthday in May."

"Cool! I'm still eight," she winked. "My birthday is in September."

"Soon, then?"

"Yup." The girl turned to Teemo. "And... sorry, I, uh, I forgot what yours was."

Teemo, a tad bit offended this time, sighed and gave her a lightly frustrated answer. "For the six- no, _seventh_ time, Tris, my birthday's in August. As in, it happened not too long ago? And you were there?"

"Right." Tristana had a bit of a faulty memory, or perhaps she was just sloppy in that regard.

"It's nothing, no big deal," Teemo said. The two younger children laughed amongst each other, before Tristana glanced further down the block and stole a glance at her watch.

"Well, I gotta go now. See you guys later, maybe, and at school, definitely!" The lilac yordling blasted off ebulliently with a wave behind her, racing down the street in the opposite direction from where Teemo and Kennen were heading.

"Bye, Tristana!" Teemo called as her petite figure got smaller and smaller before she disappeared down the path, her silver hair being the last thing to fade out of view. The two remaining yordlings continued their pointless walking, now in private to talk about whatever boy stuff they wanted.

"So, you have a girl friend, huh?" Kennen asked once he was absolutely certain Tristana was out of earshot.

"She's not my girlfriend!" was the younger boy's sharp, backlashing retort. "Uh, yet!"

Kennen sighed, hiding a smirk. "No, like, a friend who's a girl."

"Oh, well, yeah. She's really cool."

"Oh, I can tell," Kennen said a little dully for his sake. Whether he meant it or not was a mystery. "Are there more like her at school?"

"Well, yeah, probably. But I see her as special. That's why she's my friend. Why? You interested?" Teemo teased prankishly, shoving himself closer to his friend and nudging him quickly, but he was promptly brushed off in frisky annoyance.

"Interested in what?" the elder stared him down with a crooked smile as he kept walking, causing him to narrowly avoid clumsily walking into yet another yordle innocently sauntering down the road.

"A girlfriend. Like a girlfriend-girlfriend," Teemo continued once the passerby had left and their privacy was ensured safe again.

"Nah. Romance is dumb," stated the more socially inept yordling as he dug his sandaled foot into some nearby dirt. "Kissing is gross. Every time I think of how, uh, I... how I came to exist, I, heh, I feel disgusted." He made a mocking face, allowing himself to go cross-eyed and pushing his two index fingers together in a forceful manner. "Smooch, smooch, yuck."

Teemo laughed hard and punched his friend in the shoulder, causing him to drop the joking guise and forcing and infectious smile to break out across his face. "Don't think of it that way!"

"Ha, okay."

"Well, I don't think it's the time for us yet. Not until we get a little older. High school, maybe? Then this thing called 'hormones' will kick in and I'll get ready to fall in love! Then I'd probably want a girlfriend! And I could date Tris!" he exclaimed hopefully.

"Good luck with that," Kennen jeered, amused by his younger friend's ambition.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you wouldn't wanna date a cute girl in high school too!"

The carefree boy grinned at the fact that his friend had just admitted his interest to him, but he didn't speak on it. "I just don't see my future self... _doing that._"

As they walked more, they poked fun at each other, teasing and joking lightheartedly as good friends do. Suddenly, as Kennen was about to prepare a tease for Teemo about Tristana, one that he actually meant, they got distracted. As they passed by a large mansion, a red basketball came bouncing down towards the two, headed for the older yordling. Kennen caught the object before it could uppercut him, spinning it on his fingers for a good three seconds before he began to dribble it.

"Show off," Teemo muttered with a low grin.

"It's nothing," Kennen responded as he tossed the ball back to its owner – a very short and very furry orange yordling with white markings splotched evenly around his body, like smears of sunscreen. He had a noticeably large head, huge ears like fuzzy obtuse triangles, and he wore a very distinctive outfit: a black cap with a fossil imprint on the front, a stone blue shirt with a picture of a dinosaur, a necklace adorned with tiny bones and a single amber in the center, and unkempt brown shorts. Unlike other yordlings, he also had a brushy tail and two very prominent fangs sticking from his lower jaw. The child squealed with gratitude to thank Kennen for retrieving his ball, but after that he also waved at Teemo excitedly upon seeing the nine-year-old.

He waved affably in return, to which the orange yordling gave a lingering smile and an animalistic yell, the light illuminating his large sclera-less eyes like shiny black pearls. He returned to his activity while the two friends passed his house, with Kennen unable to resist displaying his full-fledged curiosity.

"Another friend?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, once the strange child was out of earshot.

"Eh, I guess you can say that," Teemo replied. "He would actually be in grade five next year, but he had to stay a grade down since, I dunno, since I was still in kindergarten, I think? That would've made him a first grader at the time."

"Why? Is he dumb or something?"

"I wouldn't word it that way. Some unlucky accident."

"Oh," the older kit uttered, a little ashamed of his disrespectfully inconsiderate assumption.

"He's pretty nice, though. And pretty good at gym class. Gets mad sometimes and people get hurt sometimes, but that's about it."

Kennen dismissed the dark implications of the final sentence and nodded in silent acknowledgement. They began to walk further, and eventually Kennen's house came into view off in the distance, under the shade of a couple of chestnut trees.

"By the way, Ken," Teemo said seriously, knowing they would soon part for the day. Evening was approaching, and he very well knew how severely the two yordlings' parents would reprimand them if they weren't back in their respective houses by dinnertime. They were only children, after all.

The mood became apprehensive for the older kit. "Yeah?"

"You'd better get your sorry little butt ready for school," Teemo yapped excitedly, his tone shifting in an instant. By the way they talked alone, one would think Teemo was the energetic one rather than Kennen. "Fourth grade with me! In three days! And you know how fast time flies. Summer just _literately _blew by, after all."

"School... school..." the older boy muttered before looking back at his friend.

Teemo smiled. "Yessir?"

Kennen scowled at the reminder and his friend's terrible verbal skills, then grinned. "Yessir."

* * *

**And that's it for Chapter 1! Quite a handful, maybe, but I hope you enjoyed and will look forward for more. If you have any thoughts or criticisms please don't hesitate to inform me of what I did well/you would like to see more of, as well as suggestions to improve or suggestions for the plot. Thank you :)**


	2. Chapter 2

_In the wake of a hazy June day in Bandle City, a small, air-conditioned daycare building bustled with young, puerile activity. Excited kids filed in, ready for a day of fun, as their parents dropped them off with trusting smiles on their faces. _

"_Welcome to Bushberry Day Camp, little ones," a brown-furred caretaker yordle said, smiling at each of the young individuals and at his colleagues beside him. "We hope you can have a fun, awesome time during your stay here. That's seven hours to get to know each other, have fun, play games, and do what you wish... within reason, of course." The young man chuckled. Indeed, kids could be a handful sometimes. _

_After attendance, the adults got down to business. "Of course, we need to set some ground rules. Let's write 'em down," another caretaker mentioned, planting down an easel with paper on it and grabbing a marker. "Anyone got any ideas?" _

"_Ask a teacher before going to the washroom," a girl piped. _

"_Good one, very self-explanatory and very important," the adult commended, proceeding to write the statement in a black scrawl. "Anyone else?" _

"_No peanuts?" _

"_Yes, definitely. Some of us may be allergic to nuts around here, so we want to consider our fellow yordlings and make sure we don't bring anything that may trigger some... reactions." _

"_No swearing!" _

_The caretaker writing rolled his eyes, and one of the others to the side suppressed a snicker. "Of course, Todd. We do not allow swearing in here, and I'm sure your parents wouldn't want you foul-mouthing, either." _

_This went on for about ten minutes as the children tried, succeeded and failed in contributing various suggestions for rules that would make for a friendly, safe, ideal daycare environment. After the sheet was finished, the caretaker's writing was so tiny that the words almost seemed to gasp for breath at the bottom right corner of the paper. The older yordles reemphasized the ground rules before doing a countdown and declaring the kids free to play. _

_The children cheered amongst each other as they commenced their day of activity. The turnout consisted of quite a diverse group of younglings when it came to age – the oldest yordlings were around eight years old, while the youngest were around four. Kennen was right around the middle; he was six at the time, having passed his birthday just two weeks prior. _

_The boy looked around anxiously, trying to spot an activity or another yordling that might pique his interest. Wherever he looked, there was no shortage of playful, frenetic energy. But he found no luck; all the yordlings were already occupied, engaging in play with others. He found none alone that he could approach, and he was too timid to ask if he could join one of the groups who were already engaged in playing ball, hula-hooping, Tag, or the like. So, he did what he felt inclined to do: he sat alone at a table in the relatively empty arts and crafts section, took some colored markers and paper, and began to doodle. _

"_Hello," came a friendly voice above him, much like his own. _

_Startled, Kennen slashed a streak of purple marker across his paper, ruining his crude drawing of what was supposed to be a ninja. He let out a slow and subtle groan, but his frustration failed to slip out of the notice of the sudden newcomer. _

"_Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to-" _

"_It's fine." Kennen looked up to find a fawn-furred boy looking down on him and his tarnished piece. The boy looked like him, save for gentle aquamarine eyes obscured by his eyelids and circles of dark fur around them. He hadn't noticed the boy before; either he had escaped his awareness earlier, or he had arrived at day camp late. _

"_You're really good at drawing!" the unfamiliar yordling piped. _

"_Uh, umm, thanks, I guess," Kennen replied, embarrassed. He took the compliment, but he didn't view himself as a good artist, if he was telling the truth. Drawing random stuff was just one of his many stress relievers. _

_Sensing an opportunity, he spoke to the boy. "What's your name?" he asked. _

"_Teemo," he answered. "And you are...?" _

"_Kennen." _

"_Nice to meet you!" _

"_Same." They smiled at each other, glad to have found adequate company in the alien environment of the daycare center. At that moment, the two boys found a kindred spirit within each other, and they couldn't ignore what seemed like a friendly bond between the duo, complete like a key and lock. _

"_Do... do you want to be friends?" Teemo offered hopefully, confident of the answer. _

"_Sure," Kennen responded easily. Maybe this wasn't going to be so difficult after all. His new friend sat in the chair next to him and began to draw as well. His art was even more rudimentary than his own, but the two were having fun and that was all that mattered. Eventually, though, they became bored and turned to do something else. _

"_Do you want to play one-versus-one dodgeball?" Teemo propounded. After all, he did come here to make friends and play, not just sit around scribbling, or talking like it was a tea party. Plus, he was great at dodgeball, if he would say so himself. Whenever he played it in Physical Education period at school, the boy could dodge shots gracefully, and return with precise, accurate throws. The teacher and the other kids told him he was great at the game, and he took those words to heart. _

_Kennen thought it over for a moment, before conceding that he didn't have much of a choice, nor did he have a better idea. The kit shrugged. "Sure, dude. Why not." He grinned at the shorter boy. "You're on. I'll go get the ball." _

_To Teemo's astonishment, Kennen sprinted from the table with astounding speed, crossing the spacious expanse in an instant whilst expertly evading contact with all the kids and random objects lying around on the floor. He rummaged inside a wheeled box labeled 'BALLS – Please Return', then promptly raced back to the arts and crafts area, dribbling a red dodgeball – to the bewilderment of a few caretakers standing to the sides. The smaller boy noticed that it took him more time to find the ball compared to the time he took to run across the room and back. The runner's inconceivable display of speed shocked him into speechlessness. _

"_Got it," Kennen said nonchalantly to the unresponsive boy, spinning the ball on his finger. "Hello? Runeterra to... uh, Teemo. Runeterra to Teemo. You there?" He tapped the desk repeatedly, rousing his attention. _

"_Oh- oh. Yeah," he managed at last. _

"_Dodgeball. Let's play." _

"_Right." Teemo nodded to his new friend as he readied himself to play dodgeball. Knowing just how badly he was going to be crushed, he smiled solemnly._

* * *

The night preceding the big day came even quicker than Kennen expected, and the fawn nine-year-old couldn't lie to himself. After his friend Teemo talked it up so much, he was starting to become genuinely excited to enter real school for the first time, his positive feelings about the big event far eclipsing his initial fear and anxiety. He was so ready to begin school the next morning. With Teemo as his best friend and guide throughout the year, he could make himself as accustomed to school life as he possibly could, as comfortable as he wanted with the environment, routine and people.

Which is why it should come as no surprise that Kennen was absolutely devastated to learn that he would not be attending school in the same class as Teemo.

"You're skipping a grade," presented Kennen's mother, Elesa, with a shroud of unfailing, undeniable elation. "You'll be starting school in fifth grade. Aren't you excited?"

"I-I mean," Kennen managed, blinking in disbelief at the revelation. "I-I'm honored?" The pale yordling lied. He was crushed by the report, but he wasn't one to want to break his mother's heart. Words of protest began to manifest at the tip of his tongue, bubbling almost venomously, but he withdrew all his willpower to fight the urge to complain.

Sensing the falling uncertainty in his tone anyway, Elesa proceeded to comfort her son in his bedroom. "Oh, don't worry, Ken. Skipping grades isn't a bad thing. It's great, in fact! It just shows how gifted you are!" Her voice was filled with pride as she held her reluctant son, locking blue eyes with him.

Kennen shook in his mother's embrace, about to burst out in a fit, but she unveiled her secret weapon to keep him in check. Very few people knew it, but one could so easily sedate Kennen, countering his zippy propensities by applying a certain technique, like giving a dog a belly rub (one could achieve the opposite effect, instantly making him extra hyper, by tickling him). His mother rubbed his ears, relieving his stress and moving the young troublemaker into a gratifying trance.

"Trust me, sweetie, you'll be fine," she assured in her soothing voice.

"Don't call me sweetie, Mom," the young kit fumed in the comfort, masking his anxious thoughts. At his mother's so-called good news, new worries returned, swimming within his mind in huge, panicking droves. Kennen stood still, staring at the carpeted floor of his bedroom, noiselessly regarding everything that could go awry at school without his friend there to help him.

_I literally start school tomorrow. _

_What if the other kids don't like me? _

_What if I don't fit in? _

_What if they find my... my traits weird? _

_What if I don't get used to school? _

_What if I get in trouble? _

_What if I die? _

Elesa smiled sweetly, releasing her hands from her son's ears. She leaned in and kissed his little forehead, her long hazel hair brushing the top of his. Seeing that Kennen was stuck in an air of contemplation, the female yordle laid a small pamphlet – containing information on the young student-to-be's class schedule – on the large white table near his bed.

"Make sure to read the schedule, honey. If you want to pack your stuff for tomorrow, here's your bag," she motioned to a blue backpack leaned against the boy's bed frame, its exterior design streaked with generous heaps of golden lightning bolt patterns. She looked around the room, with Kennen's belongings thrown all over the place; but as tomorrow was a stressful day for the boy, she refrained from saying anything and just shook her head. Before leaving, her arm turned to switch the lights off, but she hesitated. "Oh, right. Goodnight, Kennen."

She patiently exited the room, slowly and silently shutting the door behind her as she left, leaving the stunned child to do whatever he wished.

"Night, Mom," he said calmly as the door made a final creak, before another voice streamed in through the cracks between the hinges.

"Goodnight, sport! Have a good rest. You've got a big day ahead."

"Night, Dad."

It was a cool-aired night; the clocks of Bandle City were slowly pushing their hands to the later hours, and yordles all around were preparing themselves for a restful slumber; on the other hand, children of various ages and grades were readying themselves, additionally, for the return to school the next day – if they had not already been sent to bed, at least. Kennen himself was fully awake, dressed in some shabby attire he called his pajamas; his bedtime outfit consisted of a pair of plain black boxer shorts, without a shirt.

The first thing the pale yordling did following his mother's departure was lock the door and grab the telephone sitting on his desk. Frantically punching numbers into the dial, Kennen couldn't help but feel mad. He knew all that his mother wanted was the best for him – who else would endure months upon months of him kicking the interior of her uterus just to birth him? And she had reassured him that his skipping a grade would be a good thing. So why did he feel so aggrieved that he had been condemned to this fate?

_Beep. Beep. Beep. _

The boy crabbily drilled his feet into the plush carpet floor. "Come on, pick up, pick up," he pleaded desperately, as if the person on the other end might hear him. After exactly ten seconds, the phone gave a low, deflating drawl, signifying that Kennen's call had been ignored.

_Beeeeeeep. _

At the same time, he stared at the dial, a weak, diffident look on his face. _Whoops, wrong number,_ he thought sheepishly. _Thank heavens no one picked up. That would've been really embarrassing. _

He tried again, this time eyeing the keys on the phone heedfully as he made sure to type every single digit of his target phone number correctly. Kennen tapped the surface of his desk impatiently, his nervous eyes darting in all directions as he waited. Ten seconds passed.

_Beeeeeeep. _

"Pick up, gosh darn it," Kennen cursed in vain. "Come on, come on."

He tried again, inputting the numbers once more in a less considerate manner. It took a few grueling seconds, but the phone call was finally answered by the rather unfortunate, clearly annoyed recipient on the other end.

"Hello?" came a soft, extremely tired voice. Clearly, the person on the other end had had more than enough folly to deal with for the day.

"Hey, Teemo. It's me."

"Kennen... What are you doing...? It's six minutes till midnight..." Teemo mumbled groggily – minimal surprise apparent in his voice – having been woken up so rudely by his friend's untimely call. "If my parents catch me up at this time, I'll be in so much trouble..."

"Teemo, listen, school starts tomorrow, and-" Kennen returned in the same soft whisper, but he was interrupted by his friend's sleepy, entreating muttering.

"And I should be asleep," Teemo retorted in a peeved tone. "School does start tomorrow. So, goodnight. You can tell me all about it tomorrow." He was about to hang up on his sleep-intruding friend, if not for the two simple words that came next.

"...I can't."

"What?" Teemo spoke a little louder.

"I've got bad news."

Repeat. "What?"

"We... we won't be in the same class together."

"What?" the younger yordling repeated a second time in a slightly higher tone, his simple response a fogged mixture of incredulity, curiosity, and sleepiness. "Why not? Something happen?"

"Mom says I'll be skipping a grade. I'll be starting school in the fifth grade. Believe it or not."

His inexpedient confession was greeted by a temporary awkward silence. For a moment, Kennen was worried that his friend had been discovered by his parents, and his getting into trouble for staying up at late hours would be his fault. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

The youngling's voice returned. "...I mean, how bad could that be?"

Kennen's jaw practically dropped at the passive reply as he countered by raising his own voice for emphasis, despite the hushed quietness from the speaker on the other end. "Bad? _Bad? _Teemo, I won't have you to help me. I'll be on my own. Everyone in grade five probably already knows each other, and I'll be alone."

"No... you'll be fine, trust me."

"But Teem-"

"Besides, you can still see me before school starts, and after school ends. And during school, there's recess and lunch break." Teemo whispered briskly. This alerted Kennen, reminding him of the little brochure his mother had placed on his desk. Without wasting a second, he took the booklet, titled _'Bandle River Elementary School – Grade 5 Schedule' _and flipped its crisp pages loudly, studying its foreign contents.

"Okay, Teemo, listen to this. This is my school schedule."

"Alrighty."

The older kit cleared his throat. "…English... Math... Physical Education... Recess break... Science..." he read the subjects off the schedule list in chronological order, loud enough to entertain Teemo over the phone. "History, so dumb... Art, ugh... Lunch break... Music, uh... Magic... that's a thing?"

Teemo just chuckled gently. "Yeah. Yordles are a magical race, after all. And your schedule has pretty much the same stuff as mine, just with the order all different and stuff."

"Do they teach you how to become a scout there?"

"Nope. Closest thing is in History class, probably, but I haven't learned many scout things in school yet."

"I'm gonna assume that your friend Tris doesn't learn anything about Bandle gunners either?"

"Nope."

Kennen gave in to silence, trying to brainstorm something reasonably purposeful or intelligent to mention or ask his friend next. On the other end of the line, Teemo fretfully shifted in bed, uneasily awaiting another comment.

"Hey, Teemo."

"Huh?"

"I just think about how... how nice it would've been to be in a class with all your friends. They seem like such a nice bunch. It's just a shame, y'know?"

"They are... quite the great bunch. But one grade higher is basically the same, I bet. You'll be fine. I already know a few kids a grade up from us, and they're great. The guys are pretty cool, and the girls are pretty... pretty sweet."

"Yeah, huh. Thanks for the consolation, Teemo."

"You're welcome?" the younger boy replied, unsure of what the word 'consolation' meant. Another drawn-out period of dead silence followed, with the two parties unable to form any particular words on either of their lips until a minute later.

"Hum," Teemo's muted voice shook in the wake of a faint, ambient shuffling. "Hey, I'll see you, Kennen. I think I hear my dad's footsteps. He's probably just going to the washroom, but I gotta play it safe, y'know? Besides, I'm sleepy."

"Okay. Goodnight, Teemo. And I hope I don't die tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Kennen," Teemo whispered, allowing himself a silly grin invisible to the older boy over the phone. "And trust me, you won't. It'll be great, buddy. See you tomorrow." And with that, he hung up and promptly tucked himself to bed once more, drifting into a cozy sleep mere minutes after his head hit the pillow.

Kennen sighed with finality, flopping onto his bed. He glanced restlessly at his alarm clock, set demurely on the outer side of the humble nightstand to the left of his bed. Only seven and a half hours left, he ruminated as he focused his gaze outside his bedroom window, eyes fixated on the twinkling stars and the luminous crescent moon, hanging like a silver ornament in the otherwise bleak night sky. _Seven and a half hours left to either worry, or think, or look forward to school. _

See, Kennen wasn't planning on going to sleep, a fact which even his parents knew and allowed. This was such because he was a yordling born with the burden of chronic sleep-onset insomnia, and to an unnatural severity; the little pup would find it an overwhelmingly daunting task to even begin to feel somnolence during the long hours of the night, a time when other yordles, including his parents, slept contentedly. Despite the lack of sleep, of course, his energy made sure that he never went tired. This condition was thought to be linked to his seemingly inexhaustible energy levels, but in fact, it was usually during nighttime that the child was most subdued. Not one night would he make a stir; he would simply keep to himself in the confines of his room, giving his parents the opportunity to get a good rest to deal with his antics when the sun rose the next day. To an observer from outside his bedroom, which he would keep locked until morning, one could barely conclude from the dead silence whether he was asleep or not. On those uneventful, moonlit summer nights, a young Kennen would sit atop his bed, clutching his blanket in the heat, dreaming about his place in the world.

More importantly, especially to his mother and father, those hours were the best times for Kennen to practice controlling his outrageously high vibrancy. He was productive during these hours to compensate for not sleeping. As difficult and uncharacteristically unfitting as it might appear, the young pup would often shut his eyes and try to meditate for entire minutes at once to kill time in place of sleeping. He wasn't very good at it, no doubt – the most hushed noises would inevitably reach his stimulated ears and distract him to no end – but his quiet ventures at meditation often did the job of calming his nerves and soothing his mind, no matter what kind of events during the day preceded that night.

Befitting his hyperactive nature, one might assume that enduring boring nights where the yordling was required to stay in his small room was like torture for him. However, dare he concede it, the long nights were like small adventures for him. Besides meditation, there were plenty of options of entertainment available to him in his room that he wouldn't consider exploring during the daytime. Stars and constellations lay strewn in the dark world outside the window, waiting to be counted and identified by the youngling. Numerous comic books laid in a chaffed pile in a box under his bed. Scattered in the four corners of his room were toys of various shapes and sizes. On his desk laid a stack of paper and a box of stationery (which he would hopefully remember to bring to school the next day), initially reserved for him to doodle and scribble to his heart's content when he felt like it. On occasion, the boy even enjoyed a pastime of folding origami, his favorite creations being handcrafted paper ninja stars – shurikens – that he proudly stowed away in a drawer, collecting dust until they were ready to be chucked at some poor innocent bystander.

Tonight, however, was unlike any other night. Worry knocked at the boy's conscience, and he was unable to enjoy himself. No meditating. No counting. No reading. No playing. No doodling and scribbling. No folding. All he could concentrate on were the haunting thoughts that plagued him, making him ever more apprehensive about the following day.

So, he planned. At one-thirty in the morning, the boy acquired a sheet of lined paper and a black ballpoint pen, folded it hamburger-style, and for about two and a half hours, wrote as neatly as he could. It was like a makeshift list of instructions and protocols for himself, a manual of what the new student could do when faced with different situations in the new school environment. He thought of every possible disadvantageous scenario he could be faced with.

_Bullies? I got that covered. _

_Name mispronunciation at roll call? Not a problem. _

_Girls? No sweat. _

_Lunch? I could make my own meal in a jiffy, albeit one that Mom would disapprove of. _

_Age difference? I... I would just have to mature up a little. _

The only problem he identified that he also didn't have any solutions for was quite a big one, though: what would he do if the other kids shunned him for his unnerving speed and behavior? This couldn't be helped; he never asked to be born with this trait, but he was grateful for everything he was born with, nevertheless. A loving family, a roof over his head, a good friend he could always rely on, what else could he ask for?

Almost two hours had passed since he started. Finished and mostly satisfied with his little booklet, he put aside his pen, tossing it callously in his stationery box. He grabbed the homemade pamphlet and the pencil case, managing to fold and fit the former inside his shorts' pocket and shove the latter down the maw of his backpack, crumpling papers galore. He grumbled as he glimpsed the various thin folders in his inventory, with tags reading 'English', 'Art', 'Math', and so on. Annoyed at whatever, he flumped onto the mattress.

Lying upward on his bed, the yordling stared achingly at the ceiling roofing him, with no more than occasional breathing and soft breezes from outside breaking the absolute silence. He tried to think out how his first day could go, like a mental memo. His energetic body begged him to do something, to which he responded. He rolled back and forth on the sheets, mangling his blanket into a twisted mess. Minutes later, he fell off the bed into a tangled, frustrated heap.

He decided to pay a visit to the washroom, which wasn't uncommon for a night owl like him. He didn't even need to use the toilet, nor did he want a shower at the risk of waking his parents; he just felt like going to the washroom for any other reason, whether it was to rinse his face, wash his hands, or fix his ever-untamable hair. He did all three this time around, and returned to his room, not feeling any better than before.

Deciding stillness wasn't working for him (like with any other night), the young kit resumed his original activity from hours before, turning his head to the window, observing the well-lit night of Bandle City. He turned the lights off in his room to save electricity and allow for a better view outside; most of the houses were dark, their inhabitants having gone to sleep long hours ago, but it was an illuminated view, nonetheless. His worries slightly lifted off his shoulders, the boy began to relax, and it wasn't long before could resist the urge no more. He began to count the stars one by one and make out the constellations. There was the North Star. There was the Constellation of Pantheon, its four cardinal stars twinkling independently of each other amidst the darkness. There were the Star Forger's Remains, the many celestial bodies of the constellation forming a magnificent spectacle, a shape reminiscent of a crude dragon's form. And of course, there was the brightest light in the night sky; the waxing crescent moon, smiling at all who looked upon it.

The tiny yordling looked at it all, the grand expanse beyond the stars, with ingenuous wonder and hope. Naturally, he began to wander, and his head clouded as his mind danced amidst thoughts, pondering. As he admired the beautiful masses of bright stars, shimmering like pulsing sequins in the inky expanse, he wondered and wondered. His thoughts paced, flying all over the place, to dimensions explored and unexplored. Caught in the moment, he would no longer think about school the next day until a few hours later, when it was almost time for him to leave – to be introduced to his new school, his new classmates, and his new life. Sometimes his somber mood beckoned him to contemplate deeper things such as life in general. This was one of those moments. The nine-year-old reflected on some parts of his life, somehow, in the span of an hour or two, and thought into his future.

_All those stars, he thought with a dazed, captivated smile. There are so many. Imagine... what I could do... if I had as many years left in my life as there are freakin' stars in the sky. _

And before he knew it, the moon and stars had dwindled completely, and the delightful morning chorus of blackbirds roused his mind awake.

* * *

**That's the second chapter. It's very mellow and internally-focused on Kennen and what he does while pulling all-nighters, and him worrying about starting school the next day without Teemo. The next chapter will be more dynamic though, as there will be two new yordle champions (there have been 4 so far, all introduced in the first chapter). Til next time :D**


	3. Chapter 3

The anxious nine-year-old sat awkwardly in the darkness of his room, staring unblinkingly at nothing specific. Untrusting of the mechanical marvel sitting on his nightstand – the alarm clock – Kennen aridly waited for either of his parents' calls, signifying that the time was ripe for him to go and face his first day of school.

It was morning, around six o'clock apparently, but school started at seven-thirty; it would be about an hour before he would be inclined to leave his room. Instead, the boy listened to the euphoric singing of the morning birds and perched on the foot of his mattress, twitchingly counting down the minutes.

"Rise and shine, son!" sounded his father's bullish voice at last. The words flew like an arrow through the dead silence, piercing the restless yordling, filling him with feelings of all sorts; among the most prominent, excitement and apprehension.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" the yordling yelled on cue, grabbing his backpack and shoving his pencil case and a few sheets of paper inside.

An adrenaline-fueled Kennen unlocked his bedroom door and swung it open, almost carelessly crashing it against the wall. He wanted to make a good first impression at school. First, he threw his boxers off and took a pleasantly warm shower, laden with bubbling soap and shampoo. Then, he changed into his hallmark red lightning bolt shirt and black shorts. He rinsed his characteristic untidy hair, trying his best to lay low his stubborn bedhead (yes, he starts mornings with messy hair from tossing, even though he never sleeps). He brushed his teeth so violently and thoroughly that his gums almost bled. Finally, like an agent on espionage, the crafty child snuck noiselessly to his parents' bedroom to procure a luxury item he didn't really need – a stick of mint-scented deodorant. All this he did upstairs, before racing down the stairway to greet his expectant parents.

"Well, isn't someone excited?" His father sat alone at the dining table, on the furthest chair away from where Kennen had entered the first story. "Good morning, son." The older yordle grinned, amused at his son's apparent eagerness; he was initially worried that the youngster would be totally opposed to the idea of starting school now, let alone beginning a grade up. Frankly, he was impressed that Kennen was able to stand by this attitude.

"Morning, Dad." The boy took a seat perpendicular to where his father – a middle-aged yordle who looked like an older version of him with tidy hair – sat undisturbed. He was aware of the absence of his mother. "Where's Mom?" he asked his father, who was burying his eyes in an issue of the _Bandle City Bugle _newspaper.

"She's getting your laundry," he said with a joking grin. "But don't worry about that. You'll be doing that when you're older."

Kennen simultaneously bounced in his seat and gave his dad a weird look.

"Okay, now go eat your breakfast. You wouldn't wanna be late for your first day."

"Right," the boy replied, rushing to the kitchen. There, his favorite breakfast waited, ready to start his morning off on a positive note. He returned to the table, plate and glass of orange juice in hand, and enthusiastically dug into the food – a crispy toasted waffle with strawberries and a fried egg, sunny-side-up – but not before dressing the meal with an ungodly amount of butter, to his watching father's concern. In mere minutes, the breakfast was finished. Not exactly to the last crumb (Kennen was quite the sloppy eater), but still finished, nonetheless. Elesa was an amazing cook.

"So, son," began his father after the meals were finished. "Excited for school?"

"Sure," the pup answered grayly. Despite his energy, Kennen was never really a talker; not even to his parents. The only individual he felt that he could easily drill speech on was Teemo. He fiddled with the discarded strawberry leaves on his ransacked plate. Normally, his father would order him to not play with his food, but he didn't this time.

The youngling suddenly perked up, loading a question to fire at his father. "Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"How was it like when you first started school?" Conveniently, Kennen's father was also a late newcomer to public schooling as a child; when he was a little boy, he was homeschooled up until he was grade two, and seven years old, though he didn't skip any grades.

"Well, that's a great question son, I-"

"Paul!" exclaimed Kennen's mother's sudden voice from the basement. "A little accident here. Could you come here for a bit? I need to go up and finish making Ken's lunch."

"Sure thing, honey!" Paul called back. He turned to his son, weaving a confident smile. "You just hang tight right here, son. I'll be back to tell you about my grand adventures later." And he ran comically down the stairs to where the laundry machine sat, requiring his assistance. Kennen rolled his eyes and set aside his plate.

As if in place of his father's disappearance, Kennen's mother ambled up the stairs, her face brightening the second she saw her son, ready for his first school day – breakfast gobbled, face groomed, backpack on – looking as prepared as ever since the night before.

"Good morning, Kennen," she started warmly. "How was your night?"

"Great," he replied. "I've got my whole school day planned out now." He rummaged in his shorts pockets to confirm his little folded sheet of paper was still there, taking it out to present to his mother.

"Oh, that's wonderful!"

A small smile. "Yup."

"Well, here's your lunch," Elesa piped, handing her son a little brown paper bag with his name beautifully handwritten on the front. Curious, the young kit peered inside, checking for the contents. It was a sandwich of some kind – it looked deceptively plain, but its aromatic smell was almost heavenly. Next to the meal was a box of apple juice. Not bad.

"Thanks, Mom," he smiled thankfully, accepting the bag and carefully inserting it into his backpack. _Honestly, if it weren't for my mother, I wouldn't have made it this far in- whatever. _

"No problem, honey. Now, you should really get going," the pale female advised as she glanced at the clock, its mechanical hands ticking away with every wasting second. "The bus gets here in five minutes, and your father's waiting to see you off downstairs."

And so the boy did. "Bye, Mom!" he bid her farewell, scurrying out of her sight at inconceivable speeds which didn't even cause her to flinch.

"Have a great day!"

"You too, Mom!"

The yordling made off to the main entrance of the house, equipping a pair of black strap-on shoes; he wasn't permitted to wear flip-flops to school. He opened the door a crack, hoping to not see the school bus already there, waiting impatiently for him, but to instead see his father's friendly figure standing outside, waiting for him. Maybe watering the garden or something. Instead, he was greeted by another blue eye, very much like his, peeping through the gap.

Kennen reeled back, startled, as his dad opened the door from the other side, wearing the prankster-type smile that came to a father who had just played a practical joke on his kid. "Got you good," he chuckled merrily.

"Yeah," his son returned the laugh.

"Okay, back to business," he said, more seriously but still retaining his optimistic tone. He wrapped an arm around the smaller yordle. "So, you wanted to know about my adventures? When I first started school?"

"Yessir." It looked like Teemo's influence was somewhat permanent on Kennen.

"Well, I don't really remember, to be honest," Paul admitted, earning a frown from his son. "Bu-but what I do remember, son, is what's really important! If you're new, if you're new to school, there's one thing you really need to remember to do. It's really important, so pay attention."

Kennen's curiosity was filled to the brim. "What is it?"

"Just have fun. Go with the flow," his father delivered wisely, a break from his usual playful aura. "School's just one big adventure, filled with many smaller ones. School's for learning stuff, sure, but if you don't have fun..." A pause. "You'll miss out on so much."

"Oh, okay." The kit tried to cling to those words, interpreting every possible thing they could mean.

"So just... embrace life at school. Take it easy. Don't overwork yourself, even if you are a grade up and the work is a little harder. Just a little. Cruise along and enjoy yourself, make a lot of friends and your school life will be great." The older yordle placed his hand on his son's shoulder.

"I see," Kennen said, a hand to his chin in contemplation. He was prepared to take this sage advice seriously. He reached into his pocket, prepared to add some extra loose tips to his shabby manual of new student procedures.

"And who knows? Maybe you'll even find yourself a lady you like."

"Dad-"

"That's how I met your mother."

"Oh, come on, Dad."

"Sorry, son," the big yordle grinned. A moment later, something happened that neither of them expected. A long yellow vehicle drove within view from the west, coming to an abrupt halt just outside the driveway of the house. Inside the windows of the vehicle, Kennen could make out various children of different shapes, sizes and colors – yordlings just like him, beginning school anew after a refreshing summer break. Behind the frontmost window, near the nose of the transport, he could see the bearded, amicable face of the driver, grinning down welcomingly.

"The school bus!" both father and son exclaimed to each other, as the latter hurried off to enter the vehicle. The child waved back to his parents, including his mother, who had joined her husband in the front yard; she couldn't miss watching her only son leave for his first day at school.

"Have a great day!" they called simultaneously, their pleasant synergy of voices following an invigorated Kennen into the bus. The kit greeted and thanked the bus driver appropriately, who returned the favor with a friendly smile and a warm welcome. He did not immediately dash to the back to find a seat amidst the other children, instead stopping to converse with the driver.

As the yellow bus drove off the road beyond sight, the two proud yordle parents smiled at each other, one face masked by a look of distress and concern, and the other a look of ease and confidence. They held each other tightly, caressing one another.

"Do you think he'll be fine?"

"We're talking about our little Kennen here."

"Fifth grade. Think he'll do well?"

"Oh, honey, he's strong. I know he will."

* * *

Kennen clambered onto the bus, the bright smiles on his parents' faces still implanted warmly in his brain. As soon as he ascended the tiny lift to the front of the bus, the vehicle began to move away from the house where he had done all his schooling for the past six years. The bus driver, a tawny, plump yet tall yordle, with a scruffy beard and small rounded ears, greeted the boy with a hospitable smile.

"Good morning."

"Morning, sir," the youngster replied in a very polite, albeit forced tone. The chivalrous usage of the address 'sir' probably came as a result of, yes, hanging out with Teemo. His good friend who he wouldn't be schooling much with.

"The name's Parker, but you can call me Mr. Johnson. What's your name?" the driver coaxed in a low yet booming voice, calmly managing the steering wheel as he talked in his gentle tone. His overall atmosphere betrayed that of the school bus environment, which was filled with rambunctious children, constantly yelling and screaming, though he spoke loud enough that Kennen could easily hear him. "Haven't seen you around, I don't think. You new here?"

"My name's Kennen, sir," the kit said, lowering his voice as if to exclude any kids who were eavesdropping behind them. He prepared a somewhat formal introduction for the listening adult. "I'm nine years old, turning ten next May, and my blood type is A-negative. My favorite color is red. I've been homeschooled all my life, skipped a grade and now I'm in fifth grade instead of fourth."

"Homeschooled, eh? Mmmm. Very interesting," Mr. Johnson smiled at the surplus of information. "I take it you're quite the smart little guy, eh?"

The boy felt the pressing stare of at least a dozen pairs of curious eyes on his back. Or maybe it was just the staggering weight of his overloaded backpack. "Don't patroni- I mean, I-I wouldn't say that, sir."

"And you're in the fifth grade. I have a son in there this year."

Kennen's ears perked up in interest. "Really? Who?"

"Let's just say, you'll find out later. No spoilers," Mr. Johnson said with a wink.

"Aw."

The bearded yordle chuckled, steering a left. As the bus veered, a multitude of strident shouts and wails exuded from the jittery crowd of young passengers like a shrill cacophony of poorly trained musicians. A yordling even flew out of his seat, crashing into two more on the other side of the aisle as he cackled ostentatiously.

"Aye, cut it out, Kled!" Mr. Johnson yelled behind him, not taking his eyes off the road. "Or I'll have to report this poor behavior again!" His demand was met with the young delinquent's rash laughter as he kicked the seats adjacent to him, causing multiple yordlings to cry out in alarm.

"Yeah, chill out!" a fourth grader sizzled.

"No way, Buster!" came Kled's harsh remark. "Off my seat, brother! Yeee-hawww!" he screamed as he threw his ornate hat into the air, which landed on someone else behind him. "Ey, give that back! That's mine, ya lousy li'l furbrain!"

As the chaos unfolded around the two at the front of the bus, the old yordle sighed and shook his head, still glaring ahead. "Gee whiz! My, my, certain kids are such trouble. But Kennen seems like a good li'l fella," he said aloud, as if Kennen wasn't there to hear him.

"Why? Something wrong?" the yordling asked, noting his lazy, flaxen-colored eyes. He wouldn't show it, but the disorderly display of recklessness from the fussing students planted a bit of a seed of discouragement in his mind.

"No. It's just... some yordlings are quite the heap. Crazy Kled here, for instance. There's no sugary way to put it: he's rash, rude, the li'l guy even has _violent tendencies _sometimes. Some kids are a challenge. I'm just sayin' you're not." The old yordle smiled approvingly. He leaned in close as if to share a secret, his eyes still glued in front of him – a good and responsible driver he was. "And I got some advice for ya, bud, since you're new here. Choose your friends wisely. You wouldn't wan'ta end up with the wrong crowd."

Kennen thought on the random advice on top of his parents' and Teemo's, but it was nigh-impossible to think straight with all the commotion roaring ceaselessly inside the vehicle.

"Well, why don't you go find a seat," Mr. Johnson gesticulated encouragingly. "It's still a long way to go till school, and they'd kill me if I threatened your safety by having you stand up for the whole ride. It's dangerous, y'know." His friendly monologue caused the boy to laugh before he turned away. Kennen sighed and made off in obedience, giving the driver an acknowledging nod.

_He seems like a pretty cool guy, _the pale kit thought as the bus came to a stop in front of another set of houses, and two more yordlings boarded, one wearing a downcast look and the other a wide smile. Mr. Johnson talked to them both with an inviting grin on his face as he resumed driving once more. His gregariousness was such that the glum kid's face eventually twisted into a silly smile amidst the chatter.

But back to what he was really supposed to be doing: finding a seat. The boy searched around the pandemonium for an available spot; he would have preferred to sit alone, but all the spaces were designated for students to sit in an organized two-to-a-seat fashion. He couldn't look for Teemo, because he knew his mother drove him to school. All around him were unfamiliar faces, and he couldn't decide where to sit – he knew that wherever it was he chose, he would eventually have to sit beside someone, as awkward as it may be.

He finally decided to try his luck with a yordling who suited his taste more than everyone else: a bored looking female, her eyelids low as she stared out a window, yearning to be free of the raucous bedlam of the other students. The girl looked to be around Kennen's age; she had light cornflower blue skin, colorful violet irises, sandy hair styled into large twin pigtails, and a prominent snaggletooth most easily seen when her lips were shut. She wore long jeans, a loose black tee with a gold shield logo on the center, and a black tank top underneath the shirt, its straps visible in between the shirt's collar. On the seat beside hers laid her purple backpack, placed as if she was saving the spot for someone. The girl was attractively quiet, which intrigued Kennen; he stood next to her seat, staring at her for a few seconds before she looked over and finally noticed the boy.

The girl gave him a wide-eyed, surprised look, as if caught doing something unruly. She stared for a few seconds before she flashed him a coy smile as she removed her backpack from the adjacent seat, moving it to rest at her feet. She quietly tapped the cushion, beckoning Kennen to sit beside her. And he did. He looked at the girl, who promptly turned back and continued to look out the window despite his company. He tried to devise any semi-effective conversation starters that might break the tension, but his normally quick-thinking mind went blank on him. Almost two minutes passed before either of them said anything.

"Soooo," the girl turned away from the glass and began timidly, her long rabbit-like ears fluttering on either side of her head. Scratch that, if she was going to be the one to start talking instead of him, so be it. "I've never seen you before. Are you new here?"

The boy felt cued to repeat the introduction he presented to the driver, who, mind him, had stopped the bus at another residence, causing the background noise to simmer down a tad. "My name's Kennen, I'm nine years old but turn ten next May, blood type A-negative, red's my fave color, I've been homeschooled my whole entire life, and I'm now gonna have to skip a grade so I'm in fourth- I mean fifth grade when really I should and want to be in the fifth- I mean fourth grade," he finished breathlessly, as if reciting off a page in his brain full-throttle.

The girl smiled at him blankly, trying to process his supersonic speech while the awkward Kennen tried to curb the spontaneous itches that were tickling his body. Not noticing her state of subtle confusion, the boy continued anyway. "S-so, I'm Kennen," he said as the bus' wheels began to roll once more. "What's yours?"

"My what?"

"What's yours?" he returned, perplexing them both.

"Yeah, my what?" she asked again, her tone hinting at impatience.

"Oh, shoot, s-sorry, I meant- M-my name's Kennen. What's yours?" He cursed himself internally. He hadn't even reached school yet and already his dumb mouth and meager social skills had managed to screw him over, making him look like an utter fool in front of the first yordling he had chosen to interact with.

The girl just giggled at his little mishap. "It's okay," she grinned shyly, unable to hide her smile – a very pretty one, Kennen couldn't help but notice. "My name-" Just then, the bus rounded a turn, causing the crazy hooligan to fly unexpectedly from a seat across the aisle. He screeched a harebrained battle cry before he crashed right into Kennen, in turn causing him to bang the girl against the wall.

A few kids were laughing, though if it was at the tangled trio, something else, or simply laughter amongst each other none of the three knew. The girl tinted in embarrassment, noticing her and Kennen were pressed against each other awkwardly (with the third yordling curled on top of the two), before she promptly thrust the raging heckler off her back, with surprising force.

"Get lost, Kled!" she cried angrily, but to no one's surprise, the scoundrel didn't respond accordingly. At the order, he trained his gaze on her before rudely grabbing her by the collar, glaring at her threateningly.

"Well, well, we-ll," the taller boy drawled out with a slight air of menace. Stuck underneath him but somehow escaping his notice, Kennen could properly make out the nasty kid's features. He was a crass yordling with a lot of bone white fur, arranged almost as messily as his own hair, big wolf-like ears, and sharp teeth. His eyes – as in his sclera, not his irises – were almost crimson red, with black slits for pupils, like a lizard's, while his eye sockets were rimmed with black. He wore a zippered burgundy hoodie adorned with the small silver logo of an axe shape over his heart, with a red shirt underneath. He was kind of scary up close, if Kennen was being honest.

The girl struggled a little in his grip, her head reeling backward as if the bully had some pungent breath – which Kennen didn't doubt, judging from the rest of his physique and his personality. She remained impressively steadfast, even as the brute was breathing hard on her. "I said. Get lost, Kled."

Kled guffawed dementedly, not taking his reptilian eyes off the female. "Naw, girl, you's the one who should git lost," he spat aggressively. "None o' y'all is gonna tell Kled what he can't or can't not do 'round these here parts! None, y'hear?! 'Specially not a li'l crappy steamin' brat like you, _Poopy!" _The bus suddenly took another screeching turn, knocking the leering ruffian off balance before he proceeded to retreat to a different area of the bus to torment someone else.

Kennen, freed from the bully's weight, rubbed himself off and turned to the girl, who was fuming angrily, gritting her teeth. "Hey, are-" he tried, but she beat him to it.

"You okay?" she finished for him, examining his arms like a nurse examines a patient.

"I should be asking you that, but yeah, I'm fine."

"Good. Kled is such a jerk."

"I can tell."

"The dude just goes around shoving and insulting other people like he owns the darn property," she ranted irately, panting slightly as a result of her annoyance. "He just thinks he can do whatever he wants like that, and it just drives me off the rails!" She buried her face in her hands.

Unsure of what to do, Kennen just sat quietly, trying hard not to squirm around as he stared at the back of the seat in front of him and kept the sulking girl in his peripheral vision. He would try to comfort her, but at the same time, he was afraid that he might set her off if he did something wrong, which – keeping in mind his poor social skills – was quite likely. But it wasn't long before the girl recovered from her fit.

"So, what was your name again?" she asked, her tone soft and tender like before.

"My name's Kennen."

"Cool! My name's Poppy. Nice to meet you," she grinned genially. She offered an outstretched hand, which the boy shook tentatively. "What grade are you in?"

"I'm in grade five. I was supposed to join school in the fourth grade, but they decided to move me up a grade and so I'm stuck in grade five."

There was a silence between the two as Poppy gave Kennen a scrutinizing look, scanning his face weirdly. The suffocating tension almost strangled the inept boy, and he almost felt himself beginning to sweat as a result of the sheer awkwardness. He couldn't do much more than fidget in his seat.

Out of the blue, Poppy brightened, unable to restrain a wide smile. "Really?!" she exclaimed.

"Wh-what?"

"No way! I'm in grade five too!"

_Oh, of course you are, _Kennen thought. _It's just a coincidence. No big deal. _

"And I also skipped a grade!" Poppy added, making Kennen choke on his saliva.

"Wha... Seriously?"

"Yeah, I'm serious," she clarified. "Grade two was too easy, so my parents wanted me to get moved to the third grade a couple years ago. Besides, I couldn't stand how immature a few of those kids were," she glanced around the cramped bus, spotting the bouncing figure of Kled as her eyes narrowed. "Not that one grade up is much better, actually."

The pale yordling caught the path of her stare, focused on the rabble-rouser like lasers as he bonked the head of another innocent child. "Huh? You mean to tell me he's in our class?"

She sighed. "Yep. Gotta deal with his hooey every day, and it hasn't been easy even since grade three." She swung her arm happy-go-luckily. "But'cha just gotta keep trying, you know? I'm not gonna give up on enjoying school just 'cause of some wacky dumb-headed numbskull jerk."

"Oh. You like school?"

"Yeah, I do. You?"

Kennen held his shoulder, relieving an itch. "Well, actually, I've never gone to school in public. For, what, let's see... like four or five years now, I learned stuff at home."

"Wow," Poppy breathed, somewhat foreign to the concept of a child being educated by their own parents at home, who were probably uncertified teaching professionals who were likely to go crazy over managing one kid. "That sounds fun, but I wouldn't know."

"No friends."

"Oh. Guess you're right."

Kennen paused briefly as an idea clawed its way into his head. It was a question, one that the boy felt was appropriate to ask in the moment, now knowing that Poppy was originally from the lower grade. "Hey."

"Huh?" was the blue yordling's one-syllable response as she shifted in her seat.

"You know a boy named Teemo?"

"Teemo?" She gave him a peculiar specimen of an expression, a queer mixture of a goofy, knowing smile and a very small glout. "Yeah, I know Teemo. Fun guy."

Kennen was surprised, but not much at the same time. He knew Teemo had attended school all his life, and he had more than likely been in the same class with Poppy before she skipped a grade. "Cool," he commented, not knowing what else to say.

"I'm the only fourth-now-fifth-grader in my grade," Poppy mentioned with a sigh. "But with you, not anymore."

"Really."

She smiled demurely. "Yeah. And I could almost tell, you look too short to be a fifth grader. You're kinda cu-"

"Yeah yeah, I know. Don't be surprised, yordles are literally one of the shortest species in all of Runeterra," Kennen said matter-of-factly. Sure, he was taller than Teemo, but his height compared to other kids left something to be desired.

Poppy grinned and turned back to observe the neighborhoods as they flew by out of the vehicle's range, leaving Kennen to stare, think and fidget. Mr. Johnson swerved another corner, causing another ruckus, before stopping in front of a large building. Kennen thought it was the school, finally, but no, it was just a random building where a few more yordlings would get on to fill the last seats in the crowded bus.

"This is a really long bus ride," he muttered to himself, digging his face into the rear of the seat in front of him. "The longest I've ever been on." But it was also the only one he'd ever been on.

Poppy caught his silent complaining and swung around to reassure him. "We're gonna be there soon," she stated, flashing a smile, which Kennen couldn't help but return. "You… uh, you wanna just talk?"

"Huh? About what?"

"Just stuff."

"…Why not."

The two children engaged in some very meaningful chatter, really getting to know each other in the span of a few minutes. And sure enough, a mere five minutes, three bus turns and three crowd outbursts later, a large, pleasant-looking building came into view, surrounded on its sides by trees and the road. This was met with many loud, enthusiastic cheers from the children, drowning out a few groans from some less excited yordlings. The bus drove into the school's small parking lot to its west, slowing and settling for the students to marvel at their destination. As soon as the vehicle stopped, children got up neatly, betraying the chaotic behavior that was raging within the bus throughout the ride. The chatty line filed out of the bus in an orderly fashion, some thanking Mr. Johnson for the ride, some not. Except for Kled, who simply opened a window and booked it, to the driver's absolute irritation.

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson sir," Kennen addressed gratefully. He thought he might continue calling the man 'sir' as a gag and a tribute to his friend. He exited the bus, to which the old yordle smiled his familiar friendly smile, telling him to have a great day.

Poppy, directly behind him, mimicked the boy as she got off. "Thank you, Mr. Johnson sir," the blue yordling thanked and mocked concurrently, to the adult's amusement. She grinned at Kennen for a reaction. Noting the girl's teasing, the boy just rolled his eyes.

Kennen glimpsed forward, the bus and Mr. Parker Johnson behind him, and took it all in. The red-and-white single-story school building under the cloudless blue sky, its green roofs and shingles armoring the top, a flagpole with the Bandle City crest on a banner erected proudly in front of the main entrance. The bustling playground off to the side, where early-coming yordlings could occupy themselves while they waited for school to begin, and the place where he would probably be during recess and lunch hours. The new crowd of arrivals that had just landed, along with some others who were dismounting from their own cars, bikes or skateboards. All around, students screamed excitedly; so was the nature of yordlings, the young of a race that was quite used to positively turbulent conduct.

Feeling eager but also quite intimidated by all of it, Kennen's mouth hung open in a rare moment of stillness. He fawned at the alien sight, but also dreaded. Words of doubt formed at his sparking tongue, and he released them. "Will... will I be okay?" He felt himself quivering, but he strolled on.

He found the pretty pigtailed girl sitting next to him on the bus now walking alongside him. Poppy simpered at him tenderly, her hair blowing in the light summer-end breeze. "You, uh... do y-you wanna be friends?"

Kennen stopped, surprised, letting slip a smile. "Uh, sure," he agreed, before Poppy smothered him in a hug.

_Maybe I was wrong, _the fawn-furred boy reflected, in the surprising comfort of his newfound friend's arms as they walked into the unfamiliar building. He couldn't help but keep grinning. _Maybe, just maybe, this won't be so bad after all._


	4. Chapter 4

"Welcome back to school," a warm feminine voice welcomed the peppy students one by one as they entered the fresh classroom where they would spend most of their time for the year. The female teacher, a young tan yordle with a slim anatomy and long, violet hair, stood patiently by the door as she greeted faces new and old, her jade eyes sparkling with kind reception. She was a reasonably new (but nowhere near veteran-level) teacher, and she made it known to the youngsters that she was a very approachable woman.

Poppy entered the room, her new friend still held prisoner in her arms. She glanced up at the teacher with big eyes and a wide smile, the older yordle unable to repress an amused chuckle as she greeted them. The blonde girl plodded off with an acquiescing Kennen in tow. He frowned with a futile struggle – the girl was deceitfully strong, more so than him – which Poppy interpreted as symptoms of worry, when in truth it was because she was suddenly gripping him so tightly.

"Trust me, you'll be fine," she promised him soothingly, ruffling the boy's untidy brown hair as if he were a pet. "I'll make sure, or my name's not Poppy," she said a bit less seriously.

"Okay," Kennen sighed. "Now lemme go."

"No," she grinned playfully, although he couldn't see it.

"Please," he begged, feigning suffocation.

"Okay, okay, fine. Yeesh."

Poppy released Kennen from her clasp before they walked over to the back of the class, past all the desks and chairs, to place their backpacks in the waiting rows of wooden cubicles. Each student wasn't assigned a compartment; they just stashed their belongings in one that... spoke to them, and then kept them for the rest of the year. Kennen found a cubby on the higher of the two rows that seemed to call his name, struggling to reach it due to his meager height.

"Shorty," Poppy giggled behind him. She watched humorously as the cross kit fruitlessly tried to shove his bag in the niche. After thirteen failed attempts he did though, and he threw his stuff up, which clattered in a tired heap. He turned to the female and beamed triumphantly.

"Who's the shorty now?" he huffed, instantaneously swallowing his words.

"You are," she grinned from ear to ear, pointing to herself and gleefully measuring the tops of their heads with her hand, successfully proving her point. Indeed, she was slightly taller than Kennen, by three inches to be exact. "Just because you can reach a shelf doesn't change anything!"

"Sh-shoot."

"Ha!" Poppy laughed, before very ironically placing her purple backpack in the cubicle right below his. The boy sunk in defeat and let her squeeze him again.

Back at the entrance, the friendly teacher continued to greet more kids, mostly exchanging sunny smiles. But that smile twisted upside down and she stifled a short sigh as the legendary troublemaker known as Kled paraded into the room, wearing the sardonic smirk of someone who had just bullied fifteen kids and jumped out a window before school even started. Clearly, the white-furred rascal had established quite the negative reputation for himself.

"Ah... Good morning, Kled," the young teacher greeted, not entirely sure what to expect.

The cantankerous delinquent swiveled to the lady's voice with his arms stretched outward in a defensive manner before he opened his foul mouth. "Ain't no lily-livered damsel in the world gonna say 'gummornin' to me, not even m'own momma, y'hear me?!" he practically screamed at the nettled woman, who didn't respond, trying to comprehend how a fifth grader could be so barbaric.

"Kl-" she was about to scold him as nicely as she could but was interrupted by the louder speaker.

"Ah, here's fine an' dandy, now do me a li'l favor an' stay silent!" he demanded fervently. "An' that's _Sir Kled _to you, missus," he added, narrowing his red eyes. The scoundrel tipped his hat and marched off, throwing his backpack in the direction of the cubbies.

The poor teacher was forced to greet the rest of the kids coming in despite a tiny part of her wanting to scream in frustration and break down sobbing. Her _hello's_ and _good morning's _lost a bit of their vigor as she thought loosely about how cruel it was that she would have to deal with an impertinent, backbreaking pest basically every day of the school year. Seriously, out of all her three years of teaching, she had never had such a rude student, and this was a fact she could already confirm within the first five seconds of him entering the classroom.

It wasn't long before all (?) the fifth grade yordlings had arrived safely. They were a very punctual handful of children, but this was exclusively the case only during the first and last few weeks of school – give it about three weeks, and certain yordlings would start to show themselves late to school repeatedly. The children gathered on a wide carpet at the front of the room, facing a huge whiteboard; this was a custom for the kids to carry out at the beginning of each normal school day. Poppy carried Kennen – mind her, he was very light – to sit on her lap on a far edge of the rug. Once the bell had rung and every single child had joined the congregation, the teacher walked and stood in front of the crowd.

"Welcome to Bandle River Elementary," began the teacher in a soothing, amicable tone, moments after the last yordling had sat down comfily. "As you all should very well be aware of, this is your first day of grade five." She attempted to hype up the kids with a pair of jazz hands.

"Woo!" yelped a lone cheer from the back of the group.

The teacher continued. "My name is Miss Jasmine, and I'll be your teacher this year." This introduction was met with a few resplendent nods and repeats of the name, like the children were just taught a new word. "I'll be teaching you all classes except for Phys Ed and music class. As usual, we're going to begin every day – and the year – with a very special little thing called a roll call, to make sure all of you are here today. Once you hear your name, please call out."

The yordlings waited in anticipation for their respective names to be called. Miss Jasmine uttered them one by one in some order specified on the sheet, using a pen to tick each name off as her calls were answered successfully. Several of the children's responses were quite... interesting, to say the least.

"Angus!"

"Here."

"Peony!"

"Here!"

"Momo!"

"Present!"

"Fizz!"

"Let me at 'em!"

"Norra!"

"Pleased to be here, miss!"

"Kled…"

"I find courage unpredictable, it's total insanity you can rely on!" And so on.

A little more than two minutes later, the entire list of twenty-four fifth grade yordlings was completely checked off. After asking if she missed any names, a question which was met with silence, she closed the attendance book and asked for a student to speed-walk down the halls to deliver the item to the front office.

"Thank you, Norra," she smiled at the raised hand, stepping forward and extending her arm to transfer the white folder to a pink girl. With the object in hand, the child flung the door open and merrily bounded out to fulfill her little quest. With her absence, and not wanting her to miss anything important, Miss Jasmine sat on a chair and proceeded to ask the most generic filler question aimed at young students just returning to school.

"So, would anyone like to share what they did this summer?"

Multiple hands shot out from the mass of furry heads, some shaking, desperate to be chosen, while others hung limply. The teacher chose the owner of a film-covered, shiny, furless hand, almost convulsing at the back of the crowd.

"Fizz, why don't you tell us about one thing you did this summer."

All attention diverted to the very unnatural-looking boy, hidden behind a couple of ears. He appeared so strange because unlike almost every other yordle in Bandle City, him and his family were not mammalian yordles. Rather, they were part of a minority, a subspecies of yordles who were amphibious, akin to frogs or newts; they had thick slippery exteriors rather than soft fur-covered skin, difficult-to-locate ears, wide mouths, some had webbed hands and feet, and they were all known for the intrinsic ability to breathe underwater and swim excellently.

The particular yordling known as Fizz was a specimen with sky blue skin and dark stripes on his sides and limbs, white spots on his head, three fat tentacle-like extensions on either side of his head instead of mammalian ears, three fingers on each hand and large teal eyes. He also had a white underbelly, but it was concealed by his top, which looked similar anyway: a raglan shirt with short blue sleeves and a white torso, over which was a cartoon of a smiling saber-toothed shark above the cyan words 'CHUM THE SHARK'. Over his legs, he wore prussian blue shorts without pockets.

"I went to a beach near Rat Town," the aquatic yordling began.

"And where is that?"

"Bilgewater."

"Of course."

"I got to ride on a wooden fis- I mean, go on a ship. When we got near the Slaughter Docks, I even saw a shark once while on that ship," he babbled rowdily. "And later I went in the water near a cool reef and got to see all the fish." He paused comically before delivering a punchline: "Then I farted."

At the jokester's gag, most of the class erupted into howling, immature laughter. A few were laughing so exaggeratedly, it spread through the crowd like a joyful contagion and caused others to double over, chortling wickedly as well.

"I bet the blasted kid got one o' those ugly li'l sharks so riled up by cuttin' da cheese, they came after 'im with their sharp mouths wiiiide open!" Kled hollered over the racket, lips flapping boorishly as his insults livened the kids' laughter even more. He wouldn't miss a single chance to rub some vituperative comments in, and he did so with nigh-full force. "An' the li'l coward swam off the dirty reef with his slimy, crap-filled rear behind his puny legs, cryin' like a darn li'l sneaky-sneak!"

"Who're you calling a puny little sneaky-sneak?!" Fizz seethed irascibly, his nerves boiling at the provocation.

"Swam like a runt!" Kled emphasized. "A soppy li'l runt!"

"Twit!"

"Sissy-stomached runt!"

"Hey, at least I can swim! I bet you're so bad, you wouldn't be able to stay afloat even if you tried!" Fizz riposted, which only added fuel to the fire.

To the ignominy of the boy in the hoodie, multiple mocking screeches cried out from the other children as more of them continued to laugh and Miss Jasmine was forced to berate the two erratic troublemakers for their less-than-exemplary behavior.

"Ohh! Roasted!"

"He got you good there!"

After they had been silenced and spoken to, the two irate males ended their scuffle and repositioned themselves, sitting at opposite ends of the carpet and glaring daggers at each other. The teacher smiled patiently and waited for the noise to subside. Inevitably, she became annoyed at the lingering tittering that sounded from a few yordlings. They were still extra tickled by the shark boy's thrilling story about how he managed to intrude a thriving ocean habitat before promptly sullying their territory with a well-placed toot.

"Kled, you're boring," the fish boy mocked once the noise had almost died down.

"Say that again, ya whale-mouthed shark-lovin' bast-" Kled snapped before the teacher had to scold the two again, to everyone else's amusement.

Poppy turned to look at Kennen, an awkward grin on both of their faces. She rolled her eyes, gesturing to Fizz, who was still suppressing a snicker, Kled, glowering crankily, and the few yordlings who were still giggling. "See, this is what school's like for me. This is what my grade's like. And these are the kinds of people we'll have to be with," she said, though in more of a positive light than a scornful one.

"Uh-huh," Kennen responded absentmindedly. He wouldn't let his friend know it, but he had suddenly found new potential in this insolent, jubilant excuse of a fifth-grade class.

* * *

Teemo sauntered excitedly in the hallways until he came to a colorful, lively sanctum – none other than the fourth-grade classroom. He glanced around at everything, from the environment to the yordlings lining up, drawing in sight of all the familiar classmates he had associated with the previous year. And the year before, and the year before that, and...

"Hey, Teemo!"

"Oh, hi, Tris," he greeted the lilac girl as she skipped up behind him to secure her place in the line.

"Where's your friend who was gonna join us? Kennen, was it?"

The fawn boy flinched in surprise. To be honest, he had completely forgotten about Kennen since last night, when he had given him that inappropriate phone call at that ungodly hour.

"Oh. Well, uh..." Teemo recalled, trying to confirm if the conversation he had with his friend the night before was a dream or reality. He couldn't really concentrate while sleepy, and he struggled to remember things that happened while he was drowsy. "I think he actually said that he couldn't."

"Why not?" Tristana asked, worry lacing her tremulous voice. "Did he get hit by a car or something?"

"No, of course not. I, uh, hmm..." the boy stalled, trying to remember. "He... he got moved up a grade. So, uh, he's in grade five now."

The white-haired girl would have eyed him with suspicion, but she found that it was trivial for him to lie about his friend skipping a grade, of all excuses he could use. "Well, okay," she shrugged, not at all bothered but glad that the other boy had, indeed, not been brutally slain by a wayward vehicle on his way to school.

Just out of sheer curiosity, Teemo thought more to see if he could make out anything else from his talk with his buddy last night. Nothing came up, so he snapped back to reality. To Tristana trying to step in front of him, cutting his place in line.

"Hey, no budging," he grinned, pointing to the empty space behind him.

"Aw, c'mon."

The line advanced, and the two were able to see a tall female standing upright by the door, welcoming each student as they entered. She was a fair, middle-aged yordle with chestnut-colored hair in curls and striking tuscan yellow irises, over which she wore thin square glasses, granting her a wise glamor to the students' perceptions.

"Good morning, Teemo," she addressed warmly, already recognizing the young boy and girl who passed neatly in front of her. "And good morning, Tristana."

"Morning," the cheery duo returned simultaneously.

The two walked to hang their backpacks in the cubbies and went to sit on the carpet in the front center of the room, roughly in the middle of the crowd. As if by chance, the spot he sat in happened to be next to the furry orange dinosaur lover he and Kennen had encountered a couple days earlier.

"Hi, Gnar."

"Mo, Keemo!"

Akin to a rabid hound, the older orange yordling began sniffing the air furiously, snapping at the air like he was trying to catch an invisible mosquito. 'Keemo' dismissed this behavior as a random tic, or likely it was just the pup reminding himself of the smell of the school environment, like the desks and chairs, and decided to leave him be. Gnar's peculiar behavior was left unexplained and presumed by many of his fellow students and teachers to be the result of some form of tragic accident in the middle of his first-grade year. But there was much more to explain his prehistoric appearance and behavior.

In truth, Gnar was an orphan. Unlike most other yordlings, the furry child was born to an unknown mother in a place outside Bandle City – in his case, the unforgivingly gelid region known as the Freljord. The overwhelmingly harsh conditions left no room for the family to pursue a proper education, only the necessity to survive; therefore, Gnar and his equally woolly parents were almost fully incapable of proper speech, speaking their own primitive language among themselves. At some point in his earlier years, as he was hobbling along the frosty landscape, he plummeted down a steep crevasse concealed by the snow, never to see his parents again.

Although he wasn't very strong, he managed to survive. Gnar's shivering body was eventually found by a duo of passing yordle explorers who just happened to be embarking on an expedition. He cried out from the darkness, his frozen chattering and occasional utterance of gibberish echoing through the fissure in the ground. After rescuing him and painstakingly identifying him as one of their kind, the couple, a male and female, decided to bring him back to Bandle City and raise him as an adopted child.

Teemo waited forbearingly as a few more of his classmates filed in just minutes before the bell rang, signifying that the school day had officially started. The children sat on the carpet chatting animatedly amongst themselves, unbothered by the clamorous peal. That is, until the teacher walked up to the front of the room and cleared her throat.

"Ahem." She tried it again; more forced this time: "Ahem!"

It didn't work, so she tried a different approach. She readied a certain chant suited for gaining the undivided attention of prattling children. It wasn't anything like a vile incantation uttered in the presence of a cult hoping to summon a demon, nor was it like a consecrating chant reserved for paladins to sanctify holy objects, or a chant that sun priests would pronounce before performing the Shuriman Ascension ritual, none of that.

"One two three, eyes on me," she began in a singsong voice.

The ears of all the fourth graders present instantly perked up as they inexorably voiced their unified reply, like a hive-mind. "One, two, eyes on you," they finished with a similar tempo. The chant worked like a charm, and the teacher smiled with accomplished exultance.

"Okay, now that that's settled. Now that that's out of the way..." She adjusted her glasses before she threw her arms into the air and cheered ardently. "Welcome one, welcome all, welcome to fourth grade at Bandle River Elementary School, everyone!"

The children cheered too in response; the teacher having successfully hyped them up. They were certainly a more optimistic, less rowdy crowd compared to the current fifth graders.

"My name is Mrs. Johnson," she introduced herself, then gave an opening, waiting for the pups to break the silence by greeting her.

A few "Hi, Mrs. Johnson" and "Good morning, Mrs. Johnson" greetings were uttered from the crowd, some lamely, and some with naive, childlike excitement.

"So, first up," Mrs. Johnson said, getting right down to business. "Roll call. You all know how this goes. I'm going to call your names one by one. When you hear your name, say something." She regretted the last part, knowing that without her direction some of the kids would say some silly things and perhaps a light expletive or two. She wished she had just ordered them to say 'here' or 'present' instead.

"Alright. Hmm... Mocha?"

A brown-furred boy made a dribbling sound with his mouth before he spoke, causing a few kids to laugh. "Here."

"Tristana?"

"Here? I-I mean, commando at your service," the lilac girl replied confidently, initially confused and unsure of why the teacher would need to confirm her presence if she had so recently just greeted her at the door.

"Mauve?"

"Potato! I like potatoes!"

"Gnar?"

"Gada!"

"Ruby?"

"Oink, oink! Moooo!"

"Eiffel?"

"I'm blue! Da ba dee, da ba daa..."

Twenty-two names and seventeen random, improper responses later, Mrs. Johnson sat down and closely inspected the completed list, wiping imaginary beads of sweat off her brow. It was the first day, sure, but not a single yordling was absent or late, a fact that was pleasantly surprising to the teacher. "Whew! That's a lot of you," she commented for the children to hear. "Now, did I miss anyone's names? Any names at all?"

There was a four-second silence before a timid, almost murmuring voice sighed from the very back of the classroom. As in, beside the cubbies, far away from the carpet where all the other yordlings were sitting. The teacher squinted, trying to make out who exactly was isolating themselves from the other children. But the hidden child remained cloaked in the shadows.

"Yes? What's your name?"

"Amumu," the voice replied.

The teacher probed over her list once more, surprised she missed such a distinct name. "Hmm. Amumu... Amumu... Amumu..." she fumbled, desperately searching for the five-letter name. No matter how hard she looked, try as she might, she could not find the mysterious name.

"Amumu... Amumu..." she continued to chant, her voice trailing off as she practically began to stall. Roughly three-quarters of the pups stared tensely at the teacher, while the others peered inquisitively at the shady cubicles.

_Huh. That's weird,_ Teemo thought, being among the curious quarter who was eyeing the back of the classroom. _Must be a new kid. I don't know anyone named Amumu, never have. If he is, then no wonder he's so shy. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the unseen yordling. _

As Mrs. Johnson's delicate voice slouched and sloped toward the point of silence, Amumu spoke softly. Their voice, despite gentle like a harmless breeze, startled a few of the pups. His voice was somehow mellow like a whisper, yet palpably coarse like sandpaper.

"Check the back."

Sure enough, as soon as she turned over the attendance sheet, the puzzled teacher could see the name 'Amumu' entered alone on the back of the paper. It was very odd, almost suspiciously eerie; while all the other names were typed up neatly on the front of the sheet, Amumu's name was written by itself – in the school administrator's handwriting – on the backside, as if someone desperately etched it in at the last second.

"Ah. Pardon me," Mrs. Johnson apologized, still heavily perplexed and slightly unsettled. "I'll check the name off, and with that – our attendance list is complete. Now, I need someone to run this over to the office. Who'll it be for our first day?" she wondered aloud, waving the white binder containing the roll call paper. She faced away. "I heard that whoever returns it to the principal will get a gold star and a piece of candy!" she sang, scanning the sea of children as numerous hands suddenly shot up.

"I think I saw Teemo's hand first," the teacher concluded, and correctly so; Mrs. Johnson had quite the quick, accurate eye, and Teemo had quite the reflexes, partly due to the influence of a certain, quick pal of his. The fawn yordling stood up, chest slightly puffed as he triumphed over his classmates, and took the folder like a prince receiving a crown. After he dashed out of the classroom, Mrs. Johnson peered at the cubbies.

"Amumu, come out please."

Silence.

"Please?"

More silence, as the remaining yordlings fidgeted in place, the tense stiffness tightening the air.

"Amumu, you wouldn't want to stop the class from learning, do you? I don't think anyone here would appreciate it if they were unable to have any fun because of one selfish yordling, don't you think?"

Amumu sighed despondently. "No, I guess not..."

"Then please come out and join us, won't you?"

The estranged child begrudgingly obliged, shuffling to their feet from an apparent squatting position. They reluctantly slunk out of the shadows of the cubbies as every yordling in the room, curious as ever, leaned over to squint and stare at where they thought the voice had been speaking from. Their form was slowly revealed, steadily separating itself from the darkness as they stood to their feet.

Fully displayed, everyone could now see Amumu. He was a very dark boy, like the shadows where he was lurking. He looked very unremarkable at first, but once his appearance was fully uncovered, everyone could spot some very striking traits. He had no fur, and his skin was charcoal black. His eyes seemed damp yet crusty, and his irises shone a salient yellow. His long, asymmetrical hairstyle, even blacker than his skin, hung loosely in snaking strands covering one side of his head, obscuring his right eye. Long dark ears adorned his head, tufted on the ends like a lynx's. For a top, he wore starchy gray bandages wrapped crudely around his torso, leaving his arms and shoulders bare, while he wore tattered khaki pants over his legs. His general aesthetic was what some people would call 'emo'.

"Thank you, young man," Mrs. Johnson voiced, to be answered by a low, forlorn grunt that escaped her notice.

The inky boy sluggishly toiled over to the carpet as Mrs. Johnson smiled hospitably. He seemed to be in low spirits; he was constantly sulking, emitting a dark, brooding overtone. As he clumped with heaving footsteps to sit on the far-right side of the rug, the three yordlings adjacent to him quickly distanced themselves. They were nice children, and they really didn't want to move away from him – but for some reason, they felt _compelled_ to.

Satisfied, Mrs. Johnson proceeded. "Okay, class, let's-" she stopped, almost forgetting that Teemo hadn't returned. "...l-let's wait for our friend Teemo." She couldn't help but wonder why he was taking so long.

* * *

Teemo had just finished delivering the clean package to the principal's office, where the secretary regarded him with a grateful smile and a 'thank you' before he left (he had also gone to the washroom and left without washing his hands after, an act that was nowhere near heroic – or hygienic – as his deed). As he was speed-walking down an empty corridor to return to his class, he passed by a pink female yordling walking in the opposite direction, hurriedly carrying a similar file.

"Norra, hey," he waved.

The girl, initially focused on bringing the item to the office, was quickly distracted. "Hi, Teemo!" she chirped eagerly. She wore a sapphire-colored skirt with a matching coat that was so long it almost touched the floor, which she left opened to reveal a bland marigold-colored shirt inside. Her cobalt hair was extremely long, almost touching the floor as well, and she had a hairclip that looked like a monarch butterfly. She wore a necklace with a small vial attached, containing a liquid that Teemo assumed to be orange juice, though one couldn't really tell. Her whole aesthetic gave her a sort of 'wannabe enchantress' vibe.

Teemo had met the older girl last year. She had joined the grade above him then, and he had happened to meet her outside of school one weekend in November. She was a nice girl – very friendly, sociable and acute, but also very peculiar; she had strange habits and hobbies, like collecting discarded pieces of trash and rereading books she had already finished dozens of times prior.

Thinking he could spare a little small talk since he wouldn't see her in class later, only on the whim during recess and lunch break, Teemo prompted a question for Norra. "So, uh... How's your summer been?"

This was a clear mistake on his part, as the girl was pretty much ready to tell him her life story.

She stopped walking completely and began to list off a bunch of... events, her gold eyes adapting a lustrous sheen. "So, on June 10th, I went to Piltover to watch them make metals into cool things with their hextech thingamajigs, and that was pretty darn cool, and the next day I though huh, why not? And since I was there, I thought I might as well go. So, I went to Zaun to do the same thing but with their bio-chem technology," she jabbered passionately to a regretful Teemo. "Then I took a little break and on June 16th, I went to the Isles of Buhru near Bilgewater so I could check out the Nagakaboo-whatever as they worshipped their octopus god. June 22nd, the Placidium of Navori in Ionia. Gosh, that place is cool! I love how all those people are all so calm and spiritual, and they just don't care about what's happening! I was just there, and they let me watch, unlike the creepy snake priests at Buhru!"

"And how's your cat?" the tan male interrupted urgently, though the query was more of an excuse to interrupt her first rant than an actual interesting topic for Teemo. He knew that, judging from the dates she was describing, she could go on for a while.

"You mean Yuumi?"

"Yeah, yeah, Yuumi. I keep forgetting his nam-"

"Her."

"...H-her name, sorry."

"She's doing fantabulously. She just sleeps on the windowsills all day and catches fish. Troutfish, icefish, rainbowfish, daggerfish, you name it," she laughed. "And sometimes she gets to go on adventures with me, but only if it's not too dangerous. Zaun and Bilgewater are a no-go, and definitely not anywhere near Where Icathia Once Stood." What Teemo didn't know was that Norra was, befitting her whimsical outfit, indeed an enchantress of sorts in her own right. She was the keeper of a magical novel of unknown origin, a sentient artifact known as the Book of Thresholds, which possessed the high-utility arcane power of being able to utilize special runes within its pages to warp its user wherever they pleased – given that they had the mental capacity. Norra was not just social, she was also smart.

Her cat, on the other hand, was her only companion at home (other than the book). It was adequate camaraderie, for the feline could speak. Unlike other beasts, pets and varmints alike, who crept and slept within the streets, alleys and houses of Bandle City, Yuumi was highly intelligent. She was a very talkative, optimistic and childlike individual, so much so that Norra often regarded her as a 'yordling in a cat's body'. She compensated wholly for the fact that Norra had no parents, but with her whiskered friend, her living tome and all the adventures she was able to embark on, she really didn't mind that much.

Norra paused. Honestly, when it came to her cat, she didn't have very much to talk about in public. She was just a talking cat after all; and describing things that happened in private between them to acquaintances or strangers was like trying to explain wizardry to a baby.

Whew, Teemo thought to himself as Norra flubbed noiselessly with her binder. Now that that's over, I really need to get back to class. Mrs. Johnson looks like the friendly type of teacher, but I wouldn't wanna find out otherwise, especially not on the first day of grade four.

"Well, I gotta get going now," the pale pup smiled heedfully. "It's been nice talking with you, and I'll see you around, Norra."

"See you, Teemo," the pink female waved as the two yordlings parted ways.


	5. Chapter 5

Kennen lay coiled in a shivering, defensive curl on the floor of the gymnasium, with a grinning Poppy stalking around him, holding a red dodgeball.

For their third period, Physical Education (though most of the children just referred to it as Gym), the grade fives received fifteen minutes of one class-decided activity as a bonus for their first gym class of the year. Much to the puzzlement of Mr. Underwood, the gym teacher, they had voted to play Turtle Tag rather than Octopus Tag, which all his previous fifth graders had chosen in prior years.

The rules were simple: a few people – three of twenty-four students in this case – volunteered or were randomly selected to be 'It'. The players who were It were given soft balls and could 'tag' people who weren't It by touching them with the balls, and the status would be transferred to the new player; the hunted would become the hunter, to put it one way. This was only regular Tag, however, and this was Turtle Tag. On top of the mentioned rules, players could have one extra defense besides running: if someone who was It were to tag them, they could curl up in a ball, facing downward, for up to ten seconds to grant themselves immunity from getting tagged. This was the gimmick of Turtle Tag.

"Eight... seven... six..." Poppy counted, smiling. The girl had changed out of her normal shirt and jeans and was now wearing her black tank top and athletic shorts akin to Kennen's. Her golden hair was also styled in a long ponytail, for so was the mandate of gym class.

The fawn yordling, still crouching, groaned as he looked up to meet his slightly taller assailant. "No Pop- no puppy-guarding," he protested with a smirk as he hid his face in his hands, but the girl just shook her head.

"Four... three... two..."

The boy glanced around, searching for an opportune timing to escape – without using his natural speed. Kennen planned to use his quirky talents as little as possible if he didn't require them, as he was afraid of what the other kids might say if they saw his display of impossible celerity. Would they be scared? Would they think he was weird? Would they think he was a cheater somehow?

"One-and-a-half, one-and-a-quarter..."

As the girl tried to think of what came next, Kennen bolted from his position in slow motion as Poppy closed in, only to swipe at air. Laughing, the boy escaped as slowly as he could while still making sure to keep a relatively steady and adequate pace to keep ahead of his friend's pursuit. He wasn't used to running at such a deliberately slow tempo; he very nearly tripped over two other yordlings as he ran.

Soon, Poppy had managed to corner him at the back of the gymnasium. The boy's eyes frantically shot around for a potential escape route, just as he remembered he could crouch down for defense, but it was too late; the girl was upon him. She laughed, pinning him to the floor and gently pulling his shirt collar.

"Tag." Her finger playfully tapped his nose.

Kennen promptly tagged her back, catching the girl off guard as he ran off accompanied by spontaneous laughter once more. But he didn't get far before an orange ball flew across the frenzy of kids, drilling him on the nose and stunning him. A few children noticed, but were too preoccupied to process the accident or take any action.

"Hyaaah! I got one, I got 'em good!" came Kled's sudden, screaming yell. "I got one of 'em trespassin' weasels. That'll teach ya what happens when you try stalkin' off on Sir Kled's property!"

The tan-furred boy collapsed on the floor as he stared at the ceiling lights overhead, his face knocked silly by the force of the object. It was a rubber ball, sure, but the thrust behind it, coupled with the fact that it hit him square on the face, made for a minor, debilitating injury. Poppy rushed to his side and barked angrily at Kled. "Watch where you're throwing that ball! This game is hands only, Kled!"

"Oh? An' who says, _Poopy?!_ This is the Jimmy-gym, the damn warzone," the taller boy approached, clad in a simple, matted red shirt with various stains all over the fabric. "Any mighty li'l soldier could throw 'em as many dang balls as they wanna!"

"We're playing Turtle Tag, not dodgeball!"

"I don't play by the rules."

"Then- ugh- You- you hit Kennen!"

The bone-colored yordling scanned the downed child. "Heh, scrawny yeller," he muttered to himself.

"Look what you did!" Poppy yelled, pointing at the stupefied Kennen. She looked around for Mr. Underwood, but the gym teacher was already dealing with another minor casualty that had occurred on the opposite side of the gym.

"Huh? What did I do, miss? I hit the _bullseye,_ tha's what I did!" he rasped, rudely poking her glabella.

"I'm-I'm gonna tell on you."

Kled pressed his nose against the girl's face, causing her to back off in a repulsed manner. "Listen up, miss," he growled. "Go ahead. I ain't gon' care. You can tell Mr. Under-whatever the hell the Jim teacher's name is, and I wouldn't care for da world. No one, an' I mean _no one_ can stop Kled."

"Wh-who cares, you jerk? What you're doing is dangerous," the ponytailed girl chafed, heel-sitting and allowing the dazed boy on the floor to lean against her lap as she stood up to the bully. "If you keep doing this you- you might actually kill someone!"

He stared at Kennen, morbidly considering it, before laughing. "So what? Das' one point for Kled!"

Disgusted by the jerk's insensitivity, Poppy fumed, clutching Kennen closer to defend him. She spoke with an uncharacteristically harsh tone, letting her scrupulous anger seep through her expression and her words: "Screw off, Kled."

"Yer _It_ now, princess," he croaked, carelessly tossing the orange ball at her. Seeing that she was already carrying a ball, he blinked and performed a double take before shrugging it off. "Ehh, call me crazy or I'd better lay it off. That darned mushroom juice's really gettin' to me." He scampered off wildly, probably to get himself tagged on purpose to acquire more so-called 'ammunition'. Poppy scowled in his direction, blowing a sour-faced raspberry as Kennen stirred in her lap, half-conscious. Fizz, who just happened to be nearby, jogged to the pair, worry on his normally goofy expression.

"Is he okay?" the amphibian yordling asked. He was sweating hard, or maybe it was just something related to his aquatic nature.

"Hope so," Poppy replied, not taking her eyes off Kennen's face.

"I bet it was Crazy Kled," the teal-eyed boy frothed. "That no-good scoundrel is always getting at something."

"Yup," the girl replied scornfully, addressing both statements.

Fizz knelt, studying Kennen. "Hey man, you okay?"

"Ye... yeuhhh-" the tan kit slurred, opening his eyes a crack.

The blue boy raised his right hand and held up two of three digits. "How many fingers am I holding?" he asked patiently.

"F-ftwo- I mean four- I mean two-"

"So, which one is it? Two or four?" Fizz spoke, now a little roughly, still holding up his webbed fingers.

Kennen squinted. "Uh, two?"

"Nope," the trickster grinned teasingly to unveil his other hand, where he was sticking up all three fingers behind his back. "I was actually holding five. I really got you there, didn't I?"

Kennen smiled weakly, appreciating the joke-crack. The fish-yordling began to laugh lightly until he caught Poppy's serious glare, focused so intensely that the very gaze of the younger student seemed to pierce through his soul.

"Ah, right. S-sorry," he apologized, ashamed of his inability to repress his clownish propensities at the inappropriate time. "You, uh, should I, y'know," he motioned urgently to the other side of the gym. "Should I get the teacher?"

"That would be nice of you, Fizz."

Fizz, although boasting an extremely mischievous and prankster-like nature – like a synecdochic 'troll' if you will – was a very kind youngster. The class clown possessed a well-intentioned heart and a strong moral compass; he always did what he thought felt best and most courteous and helpful if the situation called for it. Of course, there were times where he managed to let a few inappropriately timed jokes slip through, but he was still working on those habits.

"Don't go anywhere. I'll be back in a jiffy," he said, turning heel.

The older boy ran off through a storm of students, balls and Kled. Poppy stroked Kennen as he breathed and convulsed erratically. She thought the latter might be a symptom of something concerning, but she wasn't yet aware of the boy's hyperactive traits; nor did she fully notice his odd twitching at times.

"Hey, uh, you okay?"

"Yeah," the pale pup murmured, flashing the girl a feeble smile.

"Wait. Oh my gosh, y-your nose is bleeding."

Sure enough, a minute reservoir of scarlet blood was forming at Kennen's left nostril, growing ever-so-slightly with every second. Now aware of it, he sniffled instinctively, but it didn't do much to alleviate the flow, only stop the initial stream from running down his face.

"J-just wait, okay? The... the teacher's gonna come soon."

"Okay."

Approximately twenty seconds later, the tall, umber-furred chaperone returned with Fizz, carrying a tiny first-aid bag, reserved for minor injuries. He was a well-built man, wearing a white tee with a basketball logo that emphasized his muscles. He wore long navy-blue pants with double athletic stripes on each side, and a red whistle on his neck. He knelt to match the kids' height.

"So, what happened here?"

"Crazy Kled threw a ball at him," Poppy and Fizz explained concurrently.

"Jinx! You owe me a soda! A _Fizz_-y soda!" the slimy yordling guffawed at his own horrible pun, to Poppy and Mr. Underwood's disapproving looks.

"Thank you, Fizz. Now go play with the other children," the coach dismissed him with a hint of annoyance, and he left hastily.

Back to the task at hand, the teacher shook his head and sighed wearily. "Kled. Of course." He studied the injured Kennen pensively, a tiny stream of blood trickling down the youngster's philtrum at a leisurely pace. He held his button nose carefully, running an index finger against his face, before turning to Poppy. "It's nothing much. Just a bloody nose."

"You sure?" she asked, worried.

"Yep." The adult unpacked a small bag of tissues and turned to Kennen, who was offhandedly staring into space. "Okay, boy. You... uh, you listening, Kennen?"

"Huh? Oh. Y-yeah."

"Let's have you pinch and hold the bridge of your nose for a few minutes, for, let's say, I'd give it five just to be safe," Mr. Underwood instructed while demonstrating with his hand. "This'll stop the flow of the blood by restricting passage from the ruptured blood vessel. If you do it long enough, and correctly, it should ease the blood flow, and..." he snapped his fingers on one hand, smiling. "Just like that, the bloody nose will stop."

Kennen began to do so. He returned the warm expression with a garnish of gratitude. "Thank you, Mr. Underwood sir," he thanked quietly.

"Anytime, boy."

The adult gave the pale pup a friendly pat on the shoulder and stood up. He sent an implicit, suggesting smile to Poppy, who was hugging her friend tightly, gesticulating his face in the boy's direction, before walking away from the pair.

"Okay, now get off me," an embarrassed Kennen whispered once the coach was beyond earshot.

Poppy smiled, pointing to a row of benches on the sidelines. "Okay. You think you wanna sit out for a bit? You wouldn't wanna get hurt with that bloody nose."

The fawn yordling thought for a moment. "...Sure."

"I'll sit next to you," the girl added. "To make sure you... heal up well." To be honest, she just really enjoyed the tan boy's company. They hadn't even known each other for four hours, but Kennen was seriously... growing on her. And it wasn't just that Poppy didn't consider her classmates to be real friends, Kennen being the I've-only-known-you-for-approximately-three-hours-but-I-really-like-you exception; everything from his perceived maturity compared to the other fourth and fifth graders, to his absentminded quirkiness, attracted her.

"Now, where is that saucy boy?" Mr. Underwood wondered aloud. The tall man walked away and searched over the tract of running and scooching children, but he could not make out the hatted top of the rowdy troublemaker he was looking for. Yes, Kled wore his hat all the time in school, an act that the teachers found disrespectful – he was the only one in the class who did so, and his unyielding obstinacy rendered his teachers' demands useless.

Just then, the bell rang, indicating the beginning of the first recess of the year.

Mr. Underwood abandoned his tiny search – the rascal had probably run out the doors to scamper off somewhere unlikely in the last few minutes without informing him – he would just scold him tomorrow. The coach trilled into his whistle, its shrill chirrup alerting all the worked yordlings.

"Recess, everybody," he announced, pointing to the interior exit. "Go back to class, grab your snacks – it's a glorious, sunny day outside – so get 'yo stuff and get outta here!"

* * *

Multitudes of high-spirited yordlings, followed by vigilant supervisors, swarmed blithely out of the hind doors of the school building, their zealous cheering putting even the loud chime to shame. Some children remained within near proximity of the building's red walls; some hurried to the field; some raced straight to the basketball courts; and the rest headed for the playground.

The playground was the most popular choice; it was a paradise for bustling children, featuring many play-suited amenities designed to satisfy a young yordling's desire to frolic, swing, climb, slide, run, jump, teeter, totter or just have fun in general. There were seesaws, monkey bars, slides, swings, a sandbox and a climbing pyramid, just to name a few. Most of the area was inside a large, designated region, carpeted with many woodchips and squared off by wooden planks.

Teemo bounded out into the sunlight, the ringing echo of the recess bell still reverberating soundly through his eardrums. He was within the group of students who took their business to the jungle gym-style playground; he was closely accompanied by a ragtag band of chatting fourth graders, which included the likes of Gnar and Tristana.

"Last one there's the Voidling!"

"Woiwing!"

The exhilarated kids sprinted to their destination, ready to board the playground and play a game called Voidling Tag – a game the fourth graders were all too familiar with. The rules were as follows: one yordling was designated to be the 'Voidling', or 'It' as some preferred since it was easier. Said person would have to try to touch another player to tag them and transfer their role. The non-Voidling players would be climbing and maneuvering around the jungle gym, on its platforms, bars, poles, tunnels, slides, and whatnot, but the ground was a risky place; for within it, the Voidling would be able to move freely. The Voidling would have to keep their eyes closed if their feet were not touching the ground, but at any time, preferably on a five-second restriction, they could also let out a scream to instantly tag anyone on the ground. Human children were familiar with a variation of this game called 'Grounders' or 'Shark Tag'.

The group of fourth graders clambered up the jungle gym to a central clubhouse-like structure, each one coming after the next in rapid succession. There were nine yordlings in total, counting Teemo. Soon, all the furry children were crowded wildly atop the small sanctuary, save for one.

"Lulu, you're It!"

The yordling in question frowned momentarily, before a sunny grin broke out on her face. She was a short periwinkle girl, not much taller than Gnar. Her features included bright peridot eyes, blushy cheeks, and ludicrously long, flowing amethyst-colored hair, so lengthy that it dwarfed her height and dragged along the ground behind her. Her garb consisted of a long-sleeved pink shirt, complete with magenta stripes, and a simple red skirt.

"Okay!" Lulu warbled, shutting her eyes and beginning to count down from ten as the other yordlings scrambled over each other to reach an advantageous spot. Some hid within the tunnels and slides; some just ran around; a few courageous kids held still near the girl, ready to taunt her; and the most adventurous ones reveled at the top of the playground, amidst the ropes and spires.

"Here I come!"

Along with two others, Teemo ambled to the top of the rope-strewn play pyramid, the highest structure of the entire playground. He would be very vulnerable to getting tagged there, be it not for the fact that he knew Lulu wasn't a particularly skilled climber. As the girl chased and blindly stumbled after his classmates, with the occasional unsuccessful scream, he marveled over the sights of the schoolyard from his high perch, vainly searching for any familiar faces outside of his grade. Kennen. Norra.

"Tag!"

The pale yordling was surprised to find the younger periwinkle girl roosted on the ropes beneath his spot, beaming up at him with a wide, babyish smile.

"You're It!"

Teemo let loose a pretend sigh as Lulu and the other two children near him scrambled to dismount the structure, increasing the distance between them. As he initiated a countdown, they scattered to different areas, where the other yordlings were watching and waiting in merry anticipation.

"Ready or not, here I come!"

The joyous, climbing yordlings screamed and evaded, laughed and tagged. All of them were having so much fun with their little activity as the acrobatic students hooped around the playground, the gentle sun above smiling warmly upon them all. The game continued uninterrupted for a solid eight-and-a-half minutes before Gnar suddenly gasped, his shaggy fur abruptly standing on end. Next to him, another boy looked beneath him, feeling an appalling presence almost clawing at his feet as his toes began to curl.

"Ah!" he gaped at the yellow-eyed male standing on the woodchips under him. At the sight of the hunched yordling, his head hanging gloomily by his tilted neck, the player impulsively hopped up the railing he was on, away from the newcomer but bringing him within tagging range of the current Voidling.

"Can I play with you guys?" Amumu asked politely, scrubbing a crease on his bandaged clothing. At the sudden request, all the pups playing the game paused at once, especially the ones nearest to him.

"No, no, no," a few children close to him blurted out spontaneously, backing off.

"But I-"

"Nadda nadda nadda!" Gnar pattered in a tizzy. "Na, gnyah!"

Amumu sulked morosely, his miserable visage meeting that of the ground.

"What are you guys saying?" came Teemo's disappointed voice from across the jungle gym.

Lulu backed him up, hanging topsy-turvy from the monkey bars. "Yeah, you guys are mean!"

"Sure, you can play," the male pup allowed, but his permit was met with more desperate protests from the panicked yordlings as one of them even made a shooing command with their hands. The tan-furred boy was perched on a slide, far away from where Amumu and his rejectors were situated. Tristana sat next to him, slightly puzzled and severely perturbed.

Amumu's disheveled head revolved in the direction of the camo-shirted boy, his harrowing yellow eyes shimmering through the gaps in his curtain of hair. His visibly parched lips curled into a twisted lour, speaking unsettling volumes of distress. His eerie attention locked on to Teemo's unnerved face, unblinking.

Teemo swallowed a sudden lump in his throat.

"Oh, of course," moped Amumu sorrowfully as his lynx ears hung in despair. He turned back to the children in front of him and his head drooped in rejection. "Nobody ever wants to play with me." The dejected child, skin as dark as his broken feelings, crept away from the company silently. Teemo noticed that as he hobbled away, random students stepped away from Amumu when they noticed his presence, when he did so much as shuffle in their proximity. A girl chasing her friend even hesitated and tripped when she spotted the boy.

"Psst, Teemo," Tristana whispered hoarsely, gesturing to the crestfallen kit as his heavy feet carried him further away from the playground.

The boy turned impulsively. "Hm?"

The white-haired girl pointed an unsteady finger at Amumu's disappearing silhouette again, a disquieted tone creeping up her throat. "What's up with that guy?"

Teemo squinted at the somber figure. "I... I don't know. He seems okay, just shy. I don't get why people don't like him. Like, all those random people there making way for him, they seem... scared... of him."

Once the bandaged boy was out of sight, the other seven fourth graders on the playground promptly resumed playing, laughing and yelling forgetfully as they moved with joy, almost as if that uncanny encounter had never even happened at all.

"Tag! You're it again, Lulu!"

"Aw..."

"Lulu's It! Lulu's It!"

"Ruru rit! Ruru rit! Shubbanuffa!"

"Yeah," Tristana commented with a puzzled frown. "I'm not sure why either."

"Even Gnar..." He pointed at the unkempt orange yordling, tumultuously tumbling down a short slide, to which his noises were answered by a mistimed scream. "I really don't get what other people see is wrong with him."

"Amumu'll be fine, it's only the first day, later he'll be fine. And new kids always turn out well," the lilac girl assured. "At least, I can only hope so."

"Same," Teemo agreed as he turned to glimpse a feverish Gnar rollicking hungrily toward them, manically hopping to and fro from the small platforms.

"Watch out!"

"Gnar's It! Gnar's the Voidling!"

"Teemo, Tristy, _run!_"

"Okay, okay!" The fawn pup scrambled, almost tripping over his friend. Teemo escaped with relative ease and a sly grin, but Gnar proved to be too fast for Tristana as he bounced hectically after her, closing the distance and managing to slap her shoe off as both the furry boy and the footwear swung off the rail.

"Yag!" he yapped, before he realized. "Woobsees."

"Okay, okay, you got me," Tristana conceded amidst the screams and howls of delight as she hopped to the ground. "Now go get that, Gnar." At her behest, the orange yordling sheepishly retrieved the shoe before climbing back onto the playground and blowing a taunting raspberry at the new Voidling. The kids would continue to play their game for a few more minutes, their time limited only by the restrictions of the second recess bell.

A remote distance away from the ebullient children, Amumu slunk onto the planks that bordered the playground on its south side. He sat near a toppled recycling bin, lachrymosely observing a few black flies buzzing incessantly around the spilled detritus. Mere seconds after his arrival, though, the insects migrated, almost desperately flying to another garbage receptacle quite a distance away.

No one saw him. No one watched him. No one even noticed him. It was like they didn't care about him at all, it was like every creature on this cursed earth either ignored or felt repulsed or terrified by him. The boy thought on this with anger.

"Hey, is everything oka- uh, uhh, is... ev-everything... o-okay... th-th-there?"

Amumu looked up to find the friendl- no, the clearly visibly disturbed face of one of the young recess supervisors. Unlike his exclusive classmates in the playground, though, this person attempted to converse with him, to make him feel just a little less sad in his cruel existence. The young adult, feeling empathetic for the yordling, offered a trembling hand, to Amumu's surprise.

"H-h-here... Le-let's help y-you up-p..."

The dark kit was suddenly very reluctant to accept the adult's token of kindness. He hesitated, coughing reluctantly, not wanting to grab his hand, knowing very well what might happen; but the older yordle, despite his fearful shaking, insisted upon it.

"C-come on..."

"Are you sure...?" the bandaged child mumbled with a voice that made his skin crawl.

"Y-yes... Now let's- let's go... Th-the bell's about to- to r-ring soon..."

Amumu accepted with uncertainty, slowly taking his hand as the young man pulled him to his feet. The supervisor found that there was nothing unnatural about his grip, albeit a bit rough and tight. He chuckled at himself for his initial display of trepidation, for now he thought he had nothing to fear...

But he was, very much, mistaken.

The young man let out a muted scream as the little boy's bony fingers clawed at his fur. They dug through the soft coating and touched the skin, and like a plague relaying itself onto a victim, withering energies seeped onto the bigger hand. The older yordle retched in horror as the blight quickly crept up his arm, ripping it of its hairs and converting the once-smooth epidermis to coarse, deathly black skin.

Amumu could only watch regretfully as the man who had attempted kindness for him reeled back in agony, all his arm skin turning bald and furless until the disease, after what felt like an eternity to him, stopped at his shoulder. Petrified by the sickening sight, the recess supervisor stared in freaked disbelief, terrified eyes shifting between the ghastly child and his corrupted arm. He gasped incomprehensibly, and tried to utter something, but his terror was so much that he could let out no more than a crippled wheeze. Finally, in the middle of the concrete washed by the sunlight, the young adult dropped to the floor, motionless.

"Sorry... I didn't mean to..." came the boy's mumbling apology. He grabbed a littered plastic spoon from the ground and held it over the body's chest for a pulse. Thankfully, there was one; the man had merely fainted.

The bell suddenly rang, and Amumu was unsure of what to do with the unconscious yordle. Children raced and stumbled over each other to enter the building and return to their classes, but not one person ran near the scene or looked in his direction.

The melancholic boy retreated to a secluded corner of the school's border, slipping even under the notice of the hawk-eyed recess supervisors. He waited patiently as the students filed in – with the intention of being the last child to reenter – aware that he would disturb the traffic if he showed himself. He sighed miserably, scratching his own cankerous skin as he sat glumly and hopelessly buried his head in his arms.

"If only they could understand..."


End file.
